BIOGRAPHY.

The Hogg family is of Scotch-Irish extraction. Governor Hogg's first American ancestor was John Hogg, his great-grandfather, who emigrated from Virginia and settled in South Carolina at an early day.

His grandfather was Thomas Hogg, a South Carolinian, who moved to Georgia.

His father was Joseph Lewis Hogg, born in Georgia.

The family established themselves in Alabama in 1818 and there, in 1833, Joseph Lewis Hogg married Miss Lucanda McMath, daughter of Elisha McMath, a prominent planter. Moving to the Republic of Texas in 1839, Joseph Lewis Hogg located first at Nacogdoches and finally at Rusk, in Cherokee county, taking an active interest and part in public affairs, represented his district in the Eighth Texas Congress, which held its sessions at Washingtonon-the-Brazos in the winter of 1843-4; was a delegate to the Annexation Convention, which met at Austin on July 4, 1845, and was a State Senator in the First Texas Legislature in 1846.

When Governor Henderson got permission from the Legislature to lead the Texan troops in the Mexican war, Senator Hogg resigned his seat and, volunteering, as a soldier, did good service in that struggle. On its conclusion he returned home and was elected to the Senate of the Legislature.

As a thorough States' rights Democrat, he represented his district in the Convention of 1861 and voted for secession, as did all of its members but seven.

With a commission as brigadier general from President Davis, he joined the Confederate army in 1861. General Hogg died in May of the following year, while in command of his brigade at Corinth. He left surviving him his wife and seven children. Mrs. Hogg

died the next year. The children were two daughters, Mrs. Fannie Davis and Mrs. Julia McDougal, and five sons, Thomas, John, James Stephen, Lewis, and Richard. The latter two died while boys. Thomas served in the Confederate army, attaining the rank of captain before the close of the war. After his return to Texas Captain Hogg became a practicing lawyer and rapidly rose in his profession. He died in 1880 at Denton, leaving a wife and five children. He was at one time county judge of Denton county. He was a man of culture and developed a tendency to literary pursuits. "The Fate of Marvin, and Other Poems" was issued by him in 1872-a work of merit. John Hogg is an intelligent, prosperous farmer in Wise county, where he resides with his family. He has served as county clerk, tax collector, and sheriff, and was postmaster at Decatur in Cleveland's administration.

James Stephen Hogg is the first and only native Texan to fill the gubernatorial chair of his State.

He was born March 24, 1851, in Cherokee county, at the Mountain Home, as the family estate was called. He was left an orphan at the age of twelve. The war swept away the property of the family.

Left to his own exertions for a support, the youth bravely went to work at whatever honest employment offered. At seventeen he entered a printing office in Tyler as a typesetter, as did later Horace Chilton, since become prominent in State and Nation.

In a few years the young printer established a newspaper of his own at Longview. Subsequently he moved it to Quitman, in Wood county, where it was successfully conducted several years as a Democratic organ under the name of the "Quitman News."

Retiring from journalism, he was elected justice of the peace for the Quitman precinct in 1873, and served three years in that position.

In 1874 he married Miss Sallie Stinson, daughter of Col. James A. Stinson, an intelligent and highly respected farmer of Wood county.

Mr. Hogg was admitted to the bar in 1875, after four years

of preparatory study. He had already achieved some success when he was elected County Attorney of Wood county in 1878. Two years later he was elected District Attorney of the Seventh Judicial District, then composed of the counties of Smith, Wood, Upshur, Gregg, and Rains.

The bar of the district was one of the strongest in Texas, and that he was able to contend against such an array of legal talent and continue to rise in his profession was certainly to his credit.

After four years of arduous and honorable service, in which he won many laurels as a fearless prosecutor for the State, he voluntarily retired from the position, and, moving to Tyler in the early winter of 1884, devoted himself exclusively to his private practice. During the following two years he began to manifest more clearly those qualities of head and heart that have since made him a tower of strength for the people and a potent and beneficent factor in the life of the State.

As District Attorney he stood solidly and fearlessly for the impartial enforcement of the laws, and in discharging his official duties did not hesitate to incur the ill will of the lawless and to intrepidly repel all attempts to intimidate him.

Emboldened by the practical immunity from being held to account that they enjoyed, certain corporations became more brazenly and defiantly disregardful of law, until the evil became as intolerable as it was fraught with public menace, and the people determined to abate it through representatives whom they could trust to execute their will. There was a widespread demand that only that kind of men should be elected to office.

In answer to this demand he became a candidate, in the spring of 1886, for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General of the State. After a spirited canvass of a few months it became evident that he was the popular choice. When the convention met all of his competitors were withdrawn and he was nominated by acclamation. He was elected, with the balance of the Democratic ticket, in the ensuing November. He entered upon the discharge of his duties as Attorney General January, 1887. A few weeks later he began exhaustive investigations of the conduct of corpora

tions and the preparation and filing of suits to enforce against them penalties incurred by violations of the laws of the State.

He compelled (to the extent of the law) the railroad corporations to do their duty to the public. He drove out of business "wild cat" insurance companies that were fleecing the people. He forced the dissolution of many illegal combinations that had been operating in defiance of law. He proceeded in the courts against defaulting sheriffs and tax collectors and delinquent land lessees to force settlements with the State. Delinquent tax payers, also, by the cooperation of county and district attorneys, were made to pay their dues to the State.

The State Democratic Convention that met in Dallas August 15, 1888, re-nominated him by acclamation. This was justly construed as an unqualified approval, by the Democratic party, of his course as Attorney General, and it was ratified by the people at the ballot box.

The difficulty of controlling railway corporations by general laws becoming more and more apparent in Texas, the idea of controlling them by a Railroad Commission (as was being done by other States) grew in favor. A bill providing for such a commission was introduced in the Twenty-first Legislature (1889), but was defeated on account of its supposed unconstitutionality. To obviate that objection, a constitutional amendment providing for a Railroad Commission was submitted to and adopted by the people in 1890.

Attorney General Hogg, while he did not originate the idea in Texas, was its most powerful champion. That it might be given practical and successful effect was the controlling motive that induced him to become a candidate for Governor. The establishment of the Railroad Commission was the central plank in his platform. "Hogg and the Commission" was the campaign slogan of the Hogg forces in 1890.

He also favored, in his canvas that year, betterment and more ample provision for the public free school system, and the enactment of an Alien Land Law to restrict the ownership of realty in Texas by aliens.

He delivered his opening speech at Rusk, near the home of his

childhood. It was a notable and masterly address in which the issues were clearly stated and the arguments forcibly made. It created such a profound impression over the State that all the five opposing candidates for Governor save one dropped out of the race. At the State Democratic Convention in San Antonio, August 13, 1890, at the close of the first ballot, he was nominated for Governor by acclamation. He received at the polls in the following November a majority of 197,000 votes-the largest ever given a candidate for that office in Texas.

The inauguration occurred in the spacious Hall of the House of Representatives, in the new State Capitol, January 20, 1891. The inaugural address was worthy of the occasi n. and was listened to attentively by the assemblage that crowded every foot of available space in the hall and included leading men from all parts of the State. It was followed the next day by a message that foreshadowed the leading, and now historic, policies of his administration. Other messages were transmitted to the Legislature from time to time as, in his opinion, the public interest or the progress of legislation required. (See messages elsewhere in this volume.)

Under his impulsion the Railroad Commission law, pronounced the best in the Union and now being patterned after by other States, was enacted. It went into effect in June, 1891. Under its terms he appointed the first commissioners, United States Senator John H. Reagan, Judge William P. McLean and Commissioner of Agriculture and Insurance L. L. Foster, and the commission entered upon the labors. It has continued, with varying personnel, to the present time.

An extra session of the Legislature was convened by him March 13, 1892, among the objects had in view being the passage of a law for the protection of the public against the fraudulent issuance of stocks and bonds; a law limiting the right of aliens to own land in Texas, and a law to define perpetuities and to restrict corporations to owning lands on prescribed conditions.

Besides other important measures, the Alien Land Law was enacted.

Having made preparations for that purpose for some time, the