James Stephen Hogg was an American lawyer and politician. He served as the 20th Governor of Texas.
Background
James Stephen Hogg was born on March 24, 1851 near Rusk, Texas, United States. He was of Scotch-Irish extraction, descended from ancestors who had moved in successive generations from Virginia to South Carolina and then to Alabama. His parents, Joseph Lewis and Lucanda (McMath) Hogg, migrated to Texas from Alabama in 1839, and James was born at the family estate, "Mountain Home. " His father, a prominent planter and a member of the state legislature, became a brigadier-general in the Confederate army and died in a Southern camp at Corinth, Mississippi, in 1862. His wife survived him only a year, and James was left an impoverished orphan at the age of twelve. First as farm hand, next as typesetter on a village newspaper, then as a country editor in East Texas, Hogg earned his own living.
Education
Hogg began the study of law in 1871.
Career
In 1873 Hogg commenced his political career as justice of the peace for the Quitman precinct in Wood County. On April 22, 1874, he married Sallie Stinson. Admitted to the bar in 1875, he was elected county attorney for Wood County in 1878, and two years later district attorney for the 7th judicial district. In this position, which he held for two terms, he gained a state-wide reputation as a fearless prosecutor of criminals and an opponent of mob law.
When he took office as attorney general of the state in January 1887, he was expected to "help curb the abuses of corrupt corporations, long undisturbed in Texas. " His election on such a platform and his career as attorney general and as governor of Texas mark the important transition from the older politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction to the newer economic issues which in time came to be called progressive. The age of the "Confederate Brigadiers" had passed. With his magnetic personality and unrivaled capacity as a stump speaker, he was the natural champion of the idea of a state railway commission to regulate rates and conditions of service on Texas railways. It was the same plan which was being urged in the national legislature by his fellow Texan, John H. Reagan. On this issue, in 1891, Hogg became governor of Texas. In his first term he secured the passage of the desired law and appointed a commission under the influential leadership of Reagan, who had resigned from the Senate to give weight to the experiment.
Two years later, in spite of bitter opposition which destroyed the traditional unity of the Democratic party, Hogg was successful in his campaign for reelection. In 1894 he had the satisfaction of having his favorite measure declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. Among other measures passed through his influence were a stock-and-bond law, intended to check the issue of securities beyond the value of corporate property, a municipal-bond law to limit the extravagant expenditures of cities, and a law to prevent the creation of great land-holding corporations.
Hogg retired from active politics in 1895. At this time, according to his own statement, he was a poor man with "only fifty dollars in cash, " and he desired to earn a competence for himself and his family. At the time of his death in 1906, partly through his law practice and partly through the fortunate discovery of oil on lands which belonged to him, he was the master of a substantial fortune.
Achievements
Hogg is remembered as a prominent politician and lawyer. He was also the first Texas Governor to have been born in Texas. During his term as the 20th Governor of Texas, his administration endorsed three constitutional amendments. At his urging, the legislature passed a law allowing the Railroad Commission to fix rates based on fair valuation and to stop many of the practices the railroad companies had used to manipulate stocks. During his four years as attorney general, Hogg brought suits against fraudulent insurance companies, and secured the return to the state of almost two million acres of railroad lands.
Jim Hogg County is named after him.
