Note: death date is internment date
Ed Kone was Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of Texas from 1908 to 1914.
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ED R. KONE, farmer and lawyer, Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, son of Samuel R. and Mrs. Rebecca Sylvira (Pitts) Kone, was born on his father's farm in Montgomery County, Texas, March 15, 1848, and was reared on the farm in Hays County, where his parents located when he was an infant, and has since resided in that county. He was educated in schools at San Marcos and Bastrop, attending the Military Institute located at the latter place. His father, uncles and relatives (some of whom gave their lives for the cause) fought in the Confederate army through the war between the States. When fifteen years of age he reported to a Confederate camp of instruction for enlistment for service in the field and was drilled for a time; but much to his disappointment was, with other boys, sent home, and older but not more ardent volunteers sent to the front.
He was admitted to the bar at San Marcos in March, 1870.

When the news was flashed at San Marcos in 1874 that Governor E. J. Davis proposed to override by fraud and force the will of the people and prevent the inauguration of Coke and Hubbard, he drove to Austin in three hours (killing a fine horse) and enrolled himself in, marched to the Capitol with, and did his full part as a member of the body of armed citizens that ousted Davis, secured the installation of Coke and Hubbard, brought to an end the alien and corrupt radical regime that had cursed the State, and restored in Texas rule of the people, and, with it honest, accountability and efficiency in office.

As a lifelong Democrat he has been an active worker for good government and for party success in every contest, local, State and National, believing that the practical application of its principles would bring the highest prosperity, advancement and happiness to all. As such, he has been a delegate to county, district, State and National conventions from early manhood. He has twice been a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee.

He practiced law at San Marcos in co-partnership with W. O. Hutchison three years; with H. B. Coffield two years, and with L. H. Browne two years. Later, between two periods of service as County Judge, he practiced alone for four years. As a lawyer he was counsel in a number of the most important cases tried in Texas, and some in Kansas. He was elected County Judge of Hays County, Texas, in 1878; served as such for twelve years thereafter, then voluntarily retired from the office for a period of four years; was again elected County Judge in November, 1894, and filled that office by successive re-elections for fourteen years-until appointed and later elected by the people Commissioner of the newly-created Texas Department of Agriculture. The department was created by statute in 1907, and Colonel R. T. Milner was appointed Commissioner to serve until the next general election, viz., in 1908. He was formally nominated for the position by the State Democratic Convention in the summer of 1908. Subsequent to that action, he was tendered and accepted the position of President of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. The State Democratic Executive Committee nominated Kone for the position, to fill the vacancy, and placed his name on the ticket. Whereupon, Governor T. M. Campbell appointed him Commissioner, pending the election, and he qualified as such September 12, 1908. In November following, he was elected at the polls. He was nominated and re-elected in 1910 and 1912.

He is a member of the M. E. Church, South.

He became a Mason when twenty-one years of age, and during the next six months went through the Blue Lodge and became a Royal Arch Mason, going through all the chairs. He is a member of the Blue Lodge, Council and Chapter, A. F. & A. M. Has represented his lodges in the Grand Lodge of the State.
He has been a member of the Knights of Honor for the past thirty-seven years, and member of the Grand Lodge of that order for the past thirty-seven years, and is one of the present representatives to the Supreme Lodge. He is also ex-Grand Dictator.

He has been a member of the Knights of Pythias for the past twenty-one years, and has filled all the chairs in his lodge, and frequently represented it in the Grand Lodge.
He has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for thirty-one years. He has filled all of the chairs in his lodge, and frequently represented it in the Grand Lodge.
He is a Red Man.

He has been an Elk for seven years.

He is a member of the Texas Farmers' Congress, Texas Industrial Congress, Farmers' National Congressional Association of Southern Agricultural Workers, President of the Texas Conservation Congress, Texas State Farmers' Institute, and Southern States Association of Markets, and ex-President of the Texas Volunteer Firemen's Association.
He married in 1872 Miss Lula H. Martin, of Hays County. They have four daughters, all married.

When Commissioner Kone took charge of the Texas Department of Agriculture, it was tottering in its infancy, and it seemed doubtful if it could make good. It was said by some that difficulties in the way of its success were insuperable, and it was freely predicted that unless it met expectations it would be abolished by the Legislature (at its next session) declining to make an appropriation for its support. Instead of being depressed by these circumstances, Commissioner Kone was inspired to the vigorous, courageous and determined exertion of all the intellect and energy that could be brought to bear on the difficult problem that confronted him, solved it and has built up a Texas State Department of Agriculture that is in a flourishing condition and daily increasing in power and effectiveness; that has saved millions of dollars to the people, published and distributed a great quantity of literature of practical value to farmers, and been otherwise serviceable at home, and that has won a reputation throughout the United States as one of the best in the country.

The Legislature, representing the taxpayers, has not been insensible of these facts. The first appropriations made for the Department were in 1907 by the Thirtieth Legislature, as follows: $17,038 for the year ending August 31, 1908, and $16,858 for the year ending August 31, 1909.

The Thirty-first Legislature assembled in January, 1909. It was the first that met after Kone became Commissioner. He had not had time to more than get under partial headway the policies and results that have since borne such excellent and abundant fruit. However, that which had been done was such an earnest of what would follow that the Legislature appropriated for the department $30,178 for the year ending August 31, 1910, and $25,178 for the year ending August 31, 1911. The Thirty-second Legislature gave larger appropriations.

The Thirty-third Legislature was still more appreciative and liberal; but, exigencies of the State's financial condition caused the Governor to veto items that crippled the work of the Department during the year of 1913. It, however, made a grand showing during that year and in 1914 more than resumed its rapid onward course, when the pressure was removed.
An act of the Thirty-first Legislature, approved April 21, 1909, provided for the location and establishment of additional State Agricultural Experiment Stations by a board consisting of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Commissioner of Agriculture, who were allowed wide discretionary latitude. Commissioner Kone devoted painstaking care and labor to this task, to which fact was largely due the admirable selections made. The new stations are at Denton, Temple, Beaumont, Angleton, Spur, Lubbock and Pecos, making Texas have, with the three older ones at College Station, Troupe and Beeville, ten experiment stations in all.

Under the law, the board could have established only four stations if it saw fit; but it so wisely handled the funds entrusted to it that it gave the people twice the number, to the benefit of every part of the State.

Believing that farmers' institutes are capable of being made one of the most potent factors for agricultural uplift that it is possible to devise, Commissioner Kone, from the time he became head of the Department, has endeavored to cover the State with them, and, although when he started there were not over two or three in Texas, and he had almost no funds to operate with, his efforts have been rewarded with a measure of success full of bright auguries for the future and that enabled him to perfect a statewide organization known as the Texas State Farmers' Institute, and that undoubtedly has ahead of it a career of expanding practical usefulness. Copies of all bulletins published by the Department are sent to the Institutes, as well as to other persons who ask for them.

An important feature of the work of the Department has been the organization of baby beef clubs as auxiliaries of the farmers' institutes and which it is prosecuting with great vigor and success under his direction.

The work of the entomological and nursery and orchard inspection divisions, as conducted by him, have saved the agriculturists of the State millions of dollars.

The cotton bureau has also rendered good service.

Labors full of promise that he has conducted are those he has assiduously discharged in the interst of the better marketing of farm, orchard and garden crops, and that he is pushing toward completion and that will be of vital and far-reaching benefit to growers.

He has attended National gatherings of agricultural commissioners and workers and studied every printed work and inquired into every fact that could broaden his knowledge and more thoroughly equip him to serve the people of Texas as Commissioner of the Department.

The Department has answered thousands of letters from all parts of the United States and the world asking about Texas, and has developed into a most efficient bureau of information. It has corrected a multitude of false impressions about Texas, made its advantages known, and contributed a telling share to the economic upbuilding of the State.

It has received thousands of letters from farmers over the State asking for information or advice, and has invariably answered them fully and satisfactorily, to the great advantage of the inquirers, and, incidentally, of Texas agriculture. Under his direction, it has proven itself equal to its mission, and is pursuing it with bravery, faith and success.

At this writing (in 1914) he is an aspirant for the Democratic nomination, and subsequent election for Congressman-at-large from Texas, and has issued an address to his "Fellow-Democrats of Texas," asking their support, in the course of which he says, among other things:
"I have so built, from the ground up, and developed the Texas Department of Agriculture, so buttressed it in the confidence and affections of Texas' citizenship, and so mapped and initiated right lines for its future expansion and mounting upward that there is no special need that I should remain at the head of it and that under the direction of any other competent Commissioner, who will pursue a constructive and not a destructive policy, it may go forward from achievement to achievement and there be no excuse for its failure to accomplish all that it is possible for it to do; and I confidently expect that it will, that the right sort of man will be selected as my successor, and that the people will see to it that the axe shall not be successfully laid at its root to fell it to the ground, and that it will abide, flourish and be the powerful instrumentality, in their hands, for the development of Texas agriculture, that they intended it should be when they created it over artful and determined opposition and that I have made it, as far as could be done, during the six years it has been in my charge.

"It is my desire that the present National administration shall be so successful that the party will stay in power for as long a period as it did before the war (and, God willing, longer) and that it will add as many and as glorious pages to the Republic's history and the history of righteous and successful government of the people, by the people and for the people, and, as Congressman, I would work, mind and heart and hand, with the other members of the Texas delegation and the other Democratic members of the Congress to that end.

"I believe that I can be of greater service to the people as a member of Congress that I could be as Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, and than any other gentlemen who are candidates. That is the reason I am offering for Congressman instead of Commissioner. I trust that such is also your view, and that you will vote for me and give me the opportunity to serve as faithfully and efficiently in this new field, as I have done wherever else you have placed me and directed me to labor for the common wealth and the honor of the Democratic party." (Source: The Book of Texas, A Newspaper Reference Work, published by the Austin Statesman (1914)