Texas

by James A. Michener

  Had the election of 1908 gone according to schedule, the Democrats, with Garza’s last-minute voters, would have won by a comfortable margin, but a Mexican storekeeper who acted as spy for the Customs Office alerted Tim Coke to the hidden influx of Blue voters, and Coke summoned his aides: ‘Round up every Mexican in Escandón who can walk,’ and this was done.

  On Saturday, Vigil, having learned of this, called a meeting of his war cabinet and told them: ‘We face a major crisis. Coke and his Yankees are tryin’ to steal this election. If we can win it, we can hold this county for the next fifty years. Teddy Roosevelt will be out of the White House and the pressure from Washington will end. So whatever can be done must be done. If Precinct 37 has to give us five hundred to seven, it must.’

  ‘But the precinct only has a hundred and seventy-nine registered voters.’

  ‘Come voting day, it’ll have more.’

  But even so, Vigil knew that he needed some additional miracle to win, and next morning it arrived, for at about noon a man came shouting: ‘Dead girl! In the bushes by the river!’ And when the town officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, ran to verify the report, most of Bravo forgot the election, but Horace Vigil did not. Assembling his precinct workers, he asked them: ‘How can we use this sad affair to our advantage?’ and much thought was given. When the meeting ended, Héctor Garza performed his part of the strategy which had been agreed upon; he moved through the town whispering to citizens: ‘The Rangers have uncovered mysterious facts, but they won’t say what.’

  The morning before election the voters of Saldana County read the startling details: TIM COKE, REPUBLICAN LEADER, ARRESTED FOR HIDEOUS MURDER.

  Under the lash of Horace Vigil’s demand that justice be done, detectives under his control had uncovered clues, not very substantial, which led to Tim Coke, so the police, also in Vigil’s pay, had arrested the Republican leader. The local judge, a reliable Vigil man, had refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus, so that when the voting started, Coke was still in jail.

  The Republicans did their best to preserve their slight lead; they voted their Mexicans, stole ballots when they could, and put into practice the tricks Tom Coke had mastered while fighting Tammany Hall in New York. But the awful charge that their leader had committed a murder, and of a girl, sickened the voters, and many who had intended voting Republican found themselves unable to do so.

  Vigil and Garza, meanwhile, were whipping up enormous enthusiasm for the unsullied Blue cause, and even before Precinct 37 reported its traditional count—343 to 14 in favor of the Democrats—it was known that the Blues had won.

  On Wednesday, when Coke was released from jail, Vigil personally apologized: ‘Deplorable mistake. The Mexican informant couldn’t speak English, and the Rangers misinterpreted his information.’ He also drafted a statement for the press: ‘Every right-thinking citizen feels how wrong it is when a respected member of our community is subjected to unwarranted indignities. All Saldana County sends Tim Coke, custodian of our Bravo-Escandón Bridge, an apology and a solemn promise that nothing like this will ever happen again.’

  With crusading Teddy Roosevelt about to leave the White House and with Precinct 37 sticking to its habit of not reporting its count till dawn, the Democrats of Saldana County appeared to be safe for the coming decades.

  Laurel Cobb had never considered running for the seat in the United States Senate once held by his father, but in 1919 a surprising chain of events forced him to change his mind. To begin with, a revival tent was pitched on his farm, and as a consequence he began to teach a Sunday School class, which led to the excommunication proceedings within the Jordan Baptist congregation.

  The little towns of North Texas never seemed more exciting and attractive than in those hot summers when some wandering evangelist pitched his tent in a country grove and conducted a revival. If the man was noted for either his piety or his eloquence, people streamed in from forty or fifty miles, pitching their tents or boarding with strangers. Family reunions were held; courtships were launched; choirs came from distant churches; food abounded; and for fifteen joyous days the celebration continued. But the basic attraction was the fiery religious oratory, allowing people whose lives were otherwise drab a glimpse of a more promising existence.

  The revival was an important aspect of Texas culture, some thought it the major aspect, for it determined that Texas would become largely a dry state, it reinforced the power of local churches, it kept stores closed on Sundays, and it defined in fundamentalist terms what religion was. But it was also a social celebration, and the family that did not participate found itself in limbo.

  Some of the wandering evangelists ranted, some threatened, while others were little more than vaudeville performers with an overlay of Old Testament religiosity. All had their loyal patrons, but there was one who excelled in all aspects of the calling. He was Elder Fry, not associated with any specific Protestant denomination but equally at home with all—Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Campbellite—and a servant to all. He did not, like some others, come into a community to denigrate the local clergymen, claiming that only he had the truth while they were straying; he came to help, to ignite the fires of faith so that when he left, the resident pastors could do a better job. It was said of Fry: ‘He sometimes roars but he never rants. He warns of punishment in afterlife but he does not terrify. And he never tears down, he builds up.’ If the phrase ‘a man of God’ had any meaning, Elder Fry tried to be such a man.

  In the summer of 1919 he drove his buggy south from Waxahachie to the Cobb plantation, as they called their acreage, where he met with Laurel and his wife: ‘I know that a revival tent causes problems to the landowner, but if you let me use that far field, I’ll keep our visitors to only one road and we’ll do little damage.’

  ‘Elder Fry,’ Sue Beth interrupted, ‘we think of the good life we enjoy as a gift from God, and the least we can do in return is to thank Him. Will it be for fifteen days, as usual?’

  ‘The older I get the more I think that I ought to cut back to one week. Half as much work for everyone, but to tell you the truth, Mrs. Cobb, I need a week to instruct, a week to inspire, and that final glorious day for rejoicing and salvation. I’ll need the fifteen days.’

  His manner was deceptive, for he was sixty-six years old, white-haired, almost childlike, with only a modest voice incapable of filling a tent, and during the first week of a revival some had difficulty hearing him, but in the second, as he became inspired, he seemed to change: he was taller, more fiercely dedicated, and possessed of a voice which thundered its impassioned message that Jesus Christ had come down to earth to rescue human beings otherwise condemned to darkness. He never tried to force conversion, nor did he promise cures; he simply offered the testimony of a man who had lived a long life in the service of God and who believed without question that heaven awaited such faithfulness.

  Laurel instructed his servants to help the old man pitch his tent and personally worked at arranging the chairs. Sue Beth helped organize the picnic tables that would be so important a part of the two-week festival, and workmen from the farm repaired the road that would give access. As a consequence, the Waxahachie revival of 1919 was one of the best; the weather was clement and the crowds tremendous. Although the recent world war had barely touched daily life in the state, it had claimed many sons of Texas, and now people wanted to celebrate the coming of peace and were ready to accept Fry’s thesis that God Himself had been responsible for the victory. Cobb, listening to the long sermons, gained the impression that Fry thought that God watched over the United States with special attention and the state of Texas with a deep personal concern: ‘He loves Texas, and it grieves Him when a community degrades itself with liquor. Do not cause Him remorse! Halt any evil behavior which might offend Him!’

  During the second week Fry lodged with the Cobbs, at their insistence, and they enjoyed several long talks: ‘Dear friends, I find in North Texas a degree of spiritual concern unmatched anywhere else
. God has chosen your territory for some special commission. He holds Texas close to the bosom, for here He sees the working-out of His Holy Bible.’

  On Wednesday of the final week he launched into that steady ascendancy of voice and manner which brought his revivals to such triumphant conclusions, and on Friday he preached so compellingly, Cobb got the feeling that the words were directed specifically at him. Laurel was not an overly religious person—his wife was—but he did believe that society improved when it stayed close to the Bible, so on the last Saturday night he was spiritually prepared to be touched by Fry’s farewell sermon; it dealt with the Faithful Servant, and as Cobb listened to the majestic voice of this good and kindly man, he felt that he, Cobb, was undergoing what could only be termed a rebirth.

  Certainly it was a rededication, for when his local Baptist minister came out to the plantation on Monday to ask a favor, Cobb greeted him warmly: ‘Come in, Reverend Teeder. Wasn’t that a splendid two weeks?’ Teeder, a much different man from Fry, admitted grudgingly that it had been: ‘But Elder Fry seems to lack the fire that marks a true man of God.’ Cobb, not wishing to argue at a time when his heart was filled with new understandings, said merely: ‘But he wins a lot of souls,’ and Teeder said: ‘For the moment, yes, but permanently, no. I believe a sterner message is required than the one he delivers.’

  Teeder and the Cobbs belonged to the Jordan Baptist Church, situated in a pretty village just south of Waxahachie, and because it dominated a large rural population, it enjoyed a membership rather greater than one might have expected and a minister of more than ordinary fervor. In 1919, Simon Teeder stood at the midpoint of his religious career; he had started in a devout community in Mississippi, had been promoted to this good job in Texas, and would soon be moving on to a really important church in the new state of Oklahoma. He was an intense man, convinced that he understood God’s will and driven by a determination to see it prevail.

  He had been surprisingly effective in making the members of his Texas congregation feel that he, Teeder, had a personal interest in each one’s welfare, and as soon as he had settled in he established two groups to help him with the work of the church. After studying carefully the character of his parishioners, he nominated seven devout men for election to the church Council; they would advise on doctrine. He then selected a quite different group of men, respected for their business acumen, to serve as his Board of Deacons; they would look after the financial and household affairs of the congregation.

  When he had his structure completed—seven devout councillors, nineteen prosperous deacons—he pretty well controlled his area of rural Texas, and he exercised his control sternly:

  ‘Jordan Baptist is founded on sturdy principles, and if all live up to them and glorify them in our hearts, we shall never have a rumble of trouble in this church, nor a confusion of scandal among its membership.

  ‘First, we believe in the Bible as the revealed Word of God, and we accept every single passage in that Holy Book. We admit no popular modern questioning, no cheapening of that Sublime Word. If you cannot accept the Bible as written, this church cannot accept you.

  ‘Second, we believe that every man who aspires to membership in our church must take it upon himself to live a Christian life, in the fullest sense of that commitment.

  ‘Third, we condemn all those forms of loose and licentious living which have crept upon us since the end of the Great War, and anyone who aspires to the fellowship of this church must take a solemn oath to avoid drinking, gambling, horse racing, prize fighting, licentiousness with women, and other immoral behaviors. Particularly, young and old must reject dancing, which is the principal agency by which the devil seduces us.’

  When these stricter rules had been circulated and understood, Reverend Teeder began visiting various members of his congregation, pleading with them to assume additional responsibilities for the success of Jordan Baptist, and it was largely due to his imagination and drive that his church improved yearly.

  Up to now he had not visited the Cobbs, for he had good reason to suspect that Laurel did not accept the stern fundamentalism that he preached, and he wanted no dissidents or infected liberals in his congregation, but word of Cobb’s strong support for Elder Fry’s revival had caused Teeder to change his mind, and when he discussed the matter with the members of his Council, they agreed that Laurel was a man worth keeping within the body of the church; it was in pursuit of this decision that he drove out to see the Cobbs.

  ‘Brother Laurel,’ he said when discussion of the Fry revival ended, ‘God has an important mission for you, and I pray you will accept.’

  ‘I already tithe. Have for years.’

  ‘It’s not money, although God notices and appreciates your generosity. It’s you He wants.’

  ‘I have no calling to the ministry,’ Laurel said.

  ‘No, that comes to few, and it’s as much a burden as it is a glory. I’m speaking of something much simpler.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to teach Sunday School. Every Sunday. To a group of young boys that I shall assemble.’

  ‘I’d be no good at that.’

  ‘Ah, but you would. Boys fear their minister. They see him only on the pulpit. But if you, a man like themselves, only older, a plantation owner who wrestles with his fields the way their fathers wrestle with theirs … That could make a great deal of difference.’

  The two men talked for more than an hour, with Cobb reminding himself of how lucky their congregation had been to find this devoted minister. He had been on the search committee back in 1918 and had traveled to Mississippi to hear Teeder preach: ‘He’s a little too intense for my taste, but in the pulpit he glows like a burning ember. I’ll vote for him.’

  At the end of the hour Cobb found himself ensnared by Teeder’s persuasiveness, but the manner of Cobb’s submission startled the minister: ‘Reverend, if you have a weakness, it’s that you always speak of our church as if it were composed only of men. You ignore women.’

  ‘I follow Jesus and St. Paul. They placed their church in the hands of men. There were no women disciples, no women preachers, no women in command of the manifold churches of Asia. A woman’s responsibility is to find herself a Christian man, to support him, and to rear children who will follow Christian ways.’

  ‘Well, I won’t teach a class of boys. If you want me to help, you must arrange for a class of girls, because I want them to be a part of our church, too.’

  ‘That’s quite impossible.’

  ‘Then my participation becomes impossible.’ At this point Laurel called for his wife to join the discussion, and when Sue Beth understood what her husband was saying, she approved: ‘Reverend Teeder, it’s really time women were brought more closely into your church.’

  ‘They could not serve on the Council or the Board of Deacons. That’s man’s work.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Our church provides joyous opportunities for women. You women are too delicate to make decisions. Yet there’s still much important work to be done. Our little church seems twice as holy since you good women have been decorating it with flowers.’

  ‘We’re entitled to do much more,’ Sue Beth argued, but Reverend Teeder put a stop to such complaint: ‘Jesus and St. Paul have decided the character of the church, and you must find your spiritual happiness within the rules they established.’

  So the first meeting ended in a stalemate, but as he was leaving, Teeder did make one concession: ‘About that girls’ Sunday School class, you could be right. Let’s both ponder it,’ and Cobb knew that what Teeder really meant was: I must discuss this with my councillors and my deacons.

  Laurel belonged to neither group, for he was not stern enough to serve on the Council, nor had he the spare time to tend the household chores of a deacon. He was merely another silent member of one of the two major religions in North Texas: Methodist, the majority; Baptists, the more vigorous. But Cobb did take his religion seriously, as he had recently demonst
rated during the revival, and he believed that God was a reality who governed the significant parts of his life.

  There was nothing spurious in this Texan preoccupation with religion. Citizens like the Cobbs believed in the Bible; they tithed; and they strove to lead lives of Christian observance, if they were allowed to define what that meant. Specifically, they sought a society founded on a universal brotherhood in Christ, so long as the brotherhood did not have to include Indians, blacks or Mexicans.

  On Saturday, Cobb told his wife: ‘I have a feeling the men are going to approve the class for girls. They must know it’s long overdue.’ And on Sunday, at the conclusion of the worship services, Reverend Teeder, accompanied by Willis Wilbarger, the dour head of the Council, stopped him at the exit from the church: ‘Cobb, the men have approved your idea of a class for girls, and from their group alone they’ve enrolled eleven young ladies for next Sunday.’

  The class became a great success—eleven at the first session, then nineteen, then more than thirty. Cobb was a stern taskmaster, requiring his pupils to memorize crucial verses and to study entire chapters for later discussion. Always he drew the moral of the assignment back to life in Waxahachie, and especially to the region contiguous to Jordan Baptist. This caused Jane Ellen Wilbarger to complain to her father that ‘Mr. Cobb always talks about Waxahachie and never about heaven,’ a complaint which the sour-visaged man reported to the other members of the Council.

  A deputation led by Reverend Teeder and Councillor Wilbarger visited Cobb, advising him that the Baptist religion concerned itself principally with spiritual matters, not temporal, and Laurel became aware that young Miss Jane Ellen Wilbarger was taking careful note of every word he said.

  • • •

  The real trouble arose that spring when the Waxahachie newspaper, goaded by Councillor Wilbarger, who used reports provided by his daughter, printed a list of forty-two boys and girls from Jordan Baptist who had brazenly attended a dance at the country club, where they were seen by many reliable witnesses to be doing the ‘bunny hug, the fox trot, the grizzly bear, the tango and other immoral African extravaganzas.’ Of the nineteen girls listed, fifteen were members of Laurel Cobb’s Sunday School class, a fact that was noted in the report.