The
argument used was that such a parade of legally organized forces would
overawe the citizens. The secret hope, however, which was well founded,
was that such a display would promote the desired conflict. This hope
they shared with Howard, after the Governor's orders had been obtained.
Howard's vanity jumped with his inclination. He consented to the plot. A
more ill-timed, idiotic maneuver, with the existing state of the public
mind, it would be impossible to imagine. Either we must consider Terry
and Howard weak-minded to the point of an inability to reason from cause
to effect, or we must ascribe to them more sinister motives.
By now the Law and Order forces had become numerically more formidable.
The lower element flocked to the colors through sheer fright. A certain
proportion of the organized remained in the ranks, though a majority had
resigned. There was, as is usual in a new community, a very large
contingent of wild, reckless young men without a care in the world, with
no possible interest in the rights and wrongs of the case, or, indeed,
in themselves. They were eager only for adventure and offered themselves
just as soon as the prospects for a real fight seemed good. Then, too,
they could always count on the five hundred Texans who had been
imported.
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