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Thursday, May 25, 2006
DVO Whistlestop Report 4 Gonzales-Seguin
Driving into Gonzales, it was a thrill to see the big "Come and Take It" flag waving from a pole at the edge of town. It is of course, a replica of the battle flag the Gonzales townspeople raised in 1835 in response to the Mexican Army demand to surrender their one cannon.
It was an even bigger thrill seeing the gorgeous old Gonzales county courthouse. Gonzales County was formed by legislation of the Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1842. Solemn relics from that time are seen in the hallways and byways of the courthouse.
A sizeable audience was waiting for us in the courthouse. The County Judge moved us into the big main courtroom to accommodate the crowd.
It seemed appropriate to me to draw a parallel to the town's history. I told them that just as the people of Gonzales fired the first shot in a revolution against tyranny, we the people of Texas today have to win a revolution against the tyranny of corporate government that we are living under now. There were many smiles and claps, and these assembled residents of Gonazales County clearly liked what they heard. The audience was a rainbow of old, young, male, female, Anglo, Latino, and African-American. But really, they were all just Texans together, sick and tired of the theft of democracy.
From Gonzales we went on to Seguin. We were met by a group of townspeople in the town square across the street from the courthouse. They waited for us for nearly a half hour, as a slow caravan of 18-wheelers caused our drive on the 2-lane highway from Gonzales to go at a speed of 45 and caused what should been a half-hour drive to take nearly an hour. The local AM radio station was also there and conducted interviews.
Seguin is another of the old towns steeped in Texas independence history. It is named for Juan Seguin, one of the heroes of the Texas war of independence. Juan Seguin is the most prominent figure in the 3-century line of one of the old Spanish families that settled Tejas in the early 1700s. Before he was 30 years old, he was the first person to circulate a pamphlet calling for the inhabitants of Texas to rise against the dictatorial usurper Santa Anna and achieve independence. He was one of the leaders of the Texan forces in the successful siege of Bexar (San Antonio) in December 1835. He was at the Alamo, but Col. Travis ordered him to slip through the Mexican lines and depart to seek more reinforcements. He commanded a company at San Jacinto and became a Senator of the Texas Republic. The memorial to him, near to which we met this afternoon, is beautiful and moving.
The townspeople of Seguin with whom we met this afternoon were just as responsive to the message as everybody else with whom we met all day long and the day before in the other towns we visited. They want it back, and this year on November 7 they're going to take it back.
posted by snarko! at 10:31 AM
 
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