NATIONAL GROWTH AND NATIONAL CHARACTER 199 



vernacular — they soon planted a stock-raising industry by which 

 other enterprises were supported later, and so began conquest of 

 the southern plains. The semi-lawless but unprecedentedly 

 strong character of young Texas grew with the growth of ranger 

 and brier-breaker ; and, whether the character be admired or 

 not, it played an essential part in the later growth of the nation. 

 Without the ranger, the plains and mountains would have been 

 far slower in subjugation ; without the brier-breaker, the Mexi- 

 can accessions would not have been made, and California's gold 

 would have enriched another country ; and without the Texan, 

 history's most tragic episode in human strife would not have been. 

 Savagery must have reeked with unwritten tragedies ; doubtless 

 tragedies dotted the unrecorded path of barbarism in its early 

 gropings ; but the world's writing cannot parallel the tragedy of 

 the Alamo, when a hundred and forty Texans stayed for days 

 an arm} 7 of forty times as many Mexicans, of whom they slew four 

 times their own number. The charge of the Light Brigade, im- 

 mortalized in song and story — when 



" Into the jaws of Death, 

 Into the mouth of Hell 



Eode the six hundred" — 



has stirred the souls of millions and shaped the lives of thou- 

 sands ; yet the brilliance of Balaklava pales beside the glory of 

 the Alamo. Even storied Greece, despite her tinge of heroic 

 myth, held lower place : " Thermopylre had its messenger of de- 

 feat ; the Alamo had none." Travis and Bowie and Crockett were 

 buoyed by freedom's benison into typical Americanhood; they 

 could and did sell their lives to the last throb of their hearts, but 

 they could not surrender ; they could and did erect a living 

 tomb and there bathe themselves in the blood and bury them- 

 selves neath the bodies of slaughtered foemen — for every blow 

 was struck for freedom. The strong pulse of America beats fuller 

 forever because of the mortal tragedy enacted in the shadow of 

 the Cottonwood by these immortal actors. 



It is the law of war that the strongest and bravest fall ; it is 

 the paradox of war that each such sacrifice is seed of richer 

 strength and spirit. So the tomb of freedom within Alamo's 

 walls became the cradle of liberty for the Lone Star empire and 

 state. The exultant death-cry resounded over Texas' plains; 

 it transformed a renegade into a hero and roistering rangers 

 into invincible avengers; ** Remember the Alamo" became the 



