Part IV

The author of this book on the political trials during and after the Civil War, a Mr. Renfro, a very passionate Democrat, describes another Radical-Republican office seeker in the 1871 election year, A Mr. Dunn. Mr. Renfro states; " Dunn wandered into Montgomery County between 1865 and 1870. Having little money, he opened a bar or drinking shop," the following description by author Renfro of Mr. Dunn is so amazingly an exact description of many of our Republican-Democrat office seekers as to be mind-boggling. He describes candidate Dunn as "at that time I think his taxable property consisted of one very ordinary head, graced by a taller face, which showed forth in its countenance that the owner knew very little if anything about the maneuvering of the two great political parties in our county." (Our year 2000 Presidential race an almost exact copy). To continue Mr. Renfro’s account of that 1871 candidate race for Sheriff’s office, he states that "our young hero of the ‘Bulldozing’ variety concluded he would run for that office. He was too late to announce his intentions because Mr. Womack had already been chosen as the Radical-Republican candidate and Mr. D--had no alternative but to offer himself as a Democrat and he promised if elected to adhere strictly to the principals of the democrat party. He was defeated by the Republican Womack. Our hero D-- said he was consoled by the fact that he received a majority of the votes cast by the honest and intelligent Democrats of the county. However, a short few months after the election, Mr. Womack resigned the office of Sheriff. He left the office to be filled by appointment and Mr. D--quickly used the help of his former Republican friends and got the job. He then realized that his chances of being elected to the job rather than by appointment would be much better as a Republican, so he accordingly declared that he was a Republican and always had been. When challenged by his Democratic friends as a traitor to the party, he declared that he had only done that so he could keep a Radical-Republican out of the office." Ho-Hum. If I didn’t have proof this article was written in 1872, I would declare it dated Nov. 7, 2000.

In 1878, again the Democrats of Bethel (this account is written by the Democrat T.J. Renfro), describing what happened at the political Barbecue at Bethel involving the radical R.B. Rentfro. (Note the similarity and the equally difference in the spelling of the author Renfro and his enemy Rentfro) Renfro states "R.B. Rentfro drifted into this county (Montgomery County) soon after the close of the war. He was of the legal profession and could have become one of the brightest lights that ever illuminated the Legal Bar, had it not been for his greedy desire for money and notoriety. (What’s new about that?). when the Bethel democrats held their political rally at Bethel in August 1878, Rentfro appeared without being invited, he being well-known as a Radical-Republican. This Rentfro was the instigator of a plan to abolish enough of the voting boxes of the County as to cut the Democratic votes in half. Rentfro boasting that ‘the d____d Democrats wouldn’t ride 30 to 40 miles to vote’. When one of the Democratic office-holders of Montgomery County angrily accosted Rentfro verbally about his plan, Rentfro replied that the Democrats should submit(note Nov. 10, 2000), his words ‘the Democrats should tamely submit’ spoken by the Republican candidate Mr. Rentfro and written down by the book author R.B. Renfro, a Democrat, (was almost word for word what I heard spoken by a Republican office-seeker today on Channel Two television at eleven o’clock, Nov. 11, 2000. Can you believe the identical parties, the identical reasons, the identical words were spoken in this Presidential election one hundred and twenty two years later? I’m sure our present day political conflict will end rationally).

The author Renfro writes that the Republican candidate Rentfro continued his declaration that "if the Democrats did not submit, he would raise an armed force of Republicans and cut the throats of the men, women and children and burn the town of Montgomery". It will not tax the imagination to understand what panic words like that could cause in the light of the fact that any communication was limited to letters carried by a postman on horseback or by the spoken word with the very certain differences in interpretations. Following this event, I liked the next words and sentence structure Mr. Renfro, the author used to tell about the action taken, "a number of citizens of the county met in the town of Montgomery and appointed a committee of moderate men to wait on Mr. Rentfro and inform him that his atrocious threat, together with his turbulent and vicious conduct, ever since he had come to reside in the county, had rendered him so obnoxious to public sentiment and good morals, that relief from his presence in the county was immediately desired". Would that, it worked so easily for us today?

To be continued next week.

Westmont Ranch, Montgomery, Texas. Home of Smart Highbrow Doc, son of Color Me Smart

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