.MTAzMw.NjkxNzY

90

and that was in the case of a new Post being established North of Griffin.

        The Rio Grande frontier of Texas is practically for our work an unchanging frontier. It is about the same in character and importance now, that it was in Forty Eight, and as it probably will be for forty eight years hence.  The Country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande can never be anything but a grazing Country, affording opportunity and facilities for predatory bands of thieves, Indian or Mexican - and Americans too, for that matter.
         The Government can now, as well as hereafter, determine at what points of the frontier it desires to have troops.  Having so determined, I do not see, but it is as well to purchase those site, if the price asked is reasonable.  With the Northern frontier of Texas it is quite different.  Affairs there are changing every year, new settlements are springing up and advancing constantly.  The pioneers and frontiersmen are pushed ahead every day.  The advance too of the Southern Pacific Railroad will increase this change very materially, so that it will be almost impossible to say one year where the troops may be required the next.  On this changing frontier, I do not think it advisable for the Government to purchase Military Sites, so long as they can be leased on reasonable terms.  In this category should be included all the Posts in Texas, North of Clark and Duncan.  It may be said however, that the time of completion of this Railroad is so uncertain, and the consequent changes on the frontier so remote, that the rents paid for the sites of those Posts would pay for the sites themselves meanwhile.  This may be so, still there will be changes on that frontier whether the Railroad is completed or not, though perhaps no sufficient to involve any change of Posts.