the 1980 census, Southern Baptists were three times morennumerous than the Methodists; they outnumbered thenEpiscopalians, with their prayer books and bishops, 16 to 1.nThe gaps have no doubt widened since then.nNo university of truly national stature can be found innTexas or has ever been found there. The main campus ofnthe University of Texas, located in Austin, boasts particularndepartments that are first-rate; Rice University has a longntradition of excellence, particularly in science and mathematics;nand Texas A&M University is ambitiously contendingnthe yokel image of yore. But there are no Harvards innthese here parts, or Stanfords; not even any Cal-Berkeleys ornMichigan and Indiana U’s. There are no such- universitiesnbecause Texans have not demanded there be.nThe lack of demand frustrates Texas business leaders,nwho preach that a technological future requires a welltrainednwork force. (Note the appeal to practical, as opposednto abstractly intellectual, interests.) So far these leaders havenfailed to make a big impression on the public consciousness.nI do not see Texas grieving wholesale over the deficiencynof world-famous centers of learning. Nor can it be all to thenbad, casting a suspicious eye on intellectuals and thenparaphernalia of intellectualdom. Texas has no great universities,nbut neither has it much susceptibility to professorialntheories of angst and alienation and the duty of annintellectual caste to shepherd the lowing herd.nWhat do you do with people so hardheaded, sonrancorous, so unwilling to be led around andnpreached at as Texans are? One possibility is to stare with ancertain admiration, not to mention disbelief. The 21stncentury draws near, yet the Lone Star State clings tonattitudes more generally identified with the 19th century, antime of callouses and broad vistas of opportunity. Plus qanchange: Government, religion, learning, life in general;nwhatever it is, authority in Texas still rises from the bottom.nTexas is as thoroughly democratic a venue as you will find innAmerica. But that does not say it all. Democracy-from-theground-upnproves to have consequences different from thosenwhere democracy is imposed or stimulated by the top. Thenpeople truly speak in Texas. They speak a language onlyndimly apprehended, at best, in places like Brookline, Massachusetts.nWhat do we call this language, this philosophy? Populism?nMaybe so, but to do so is to run some risks. No word innthe political vocabulary is more abused than “populism,”nunless the word is “democracy.” Richard Nixon was wrong:nwe are not all Keynesians; in the 1980’s we are all populists.nEvery last one of us these days is heartily for “the people.”nWhat divides us is the divergent ways in which we are for thenpeople.nIn Texas, Phil Gramm, the energetic free-marketeer whonis the state’s junior US senator, campaigns as a populist—none who wants to free the people from the suffocatingnembrace of government. A populist of a different stripe isnState Treasurer Ann Richards, who won guffaws at thenDemocratic National Gonvention by ridiculing “the silvernfoot” in George Bush’s mouth.nRichards tossed out Texanisms galore (Southernisms,nreally) as she swung her rolling pin at Bush. The nationnlearned about old dogs that won’t hunt and cows that eat thencabbage, and was assured this is the way good liberalnpopulists talk to each other. It happens that I learned allnthese phrases, and learned to relish them, from parents whonlast voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1936.nSlinging around the patois of the people isn’t the same asnappreciating the views of the people, many of those viewsnbred in the bone, inarticulately understood, and stoutlynmaintained against all comers.nGramm and Richards represent, and to some degreenspeak authoritatively for, the two principal strains of Texasnpopulism. Gramm’s variety is the more common, the morendeeply grounded in Texas history. Old-style Texas populism,nas represented by Governor Jim Hogg back in the 1890’s,nhad a small, a very small, quotient of socialistic envy andndesire to punish the striped-pants set. There were radicalnfarmers in Texas, as there were radical farmers all over thenSouth and Midwest. Texans, nevertheless, did not cry outnwith one accord for the big companies to be knocked downnand flayed alive for the crime of business.nTexans did not dislike “business” as such. What theyndisliked was big, foreign-owned (meaning New York-owned)nbusiness; business uncontrolled, uninhibited, and grasping.nThe Texan was by no means antibusiness; fact was, he’dnalways had a hankering to set up for himself, be his ownnman. What was the point of living in Texas, it could fairly benasked, if you failed to relish the economic opportunitiesnTexas afforded? Why not move to Gonnecticut or Virginia?nJim Hogg might inveigh against monopolistic railroads,nbut when the mammoth Spindletop oil field was discoverednnear Beaumont in 1901, he was among the first Texasnentrepreneurs to jump in and develop the field. Thencompany Hogg helped to organize is known today asnTexaco.nThe Texas Railroad Gommission, a regulatory agencynHogg helped establish after a noisy political campaign,ncarefully refrained from railroad-bashing and other endeavorsnto diminish commerce and jobs. The commission laternwas given legal oversight of the oil industry Hogg had helpednto found.nGovernment, religion, learning, life in general;nTexas is as thoroughly democratic a venue asnyou will find in America. The people trulynspeak in Texas. They speak a language onlyndimly apprehended, at best, in places likenBrookline, Massachusetts.nIn due course the Railroad Gommission became the oilnindustry’s bosom friend and tireless promoter. Gommissionersnregularly journeyed to Washington to plead for taxnbreaks and higher prices. Whenever oversupply threatenednto drive down prices, the commission lowered the monthlynallowable — the amount of oil individual producers werenallowed legally to produce. Until the rise of OPEG,nmarket-demand proration in Texas kept prices firm and thenindustry, meaning not only bosses but workers by thennnFEBRUARY 1989/21n