Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1884-01-13

As the center OF the stock interest
Texas, and the chief beneficiary OF IN
stockmen,s trade, Fort Worth will b'
more immediately and entirely affect
ed nv the enactment of herd law thar
liany CITY in Texas. Stockmen say thai
such law would expel them from tb'
state 1t would burden them with re
strictions so severe that their business
could no longer be followed witt
profit to themselves, and they woulo
be forced to vacate the country where
their profits aud interests now lie
sacrifice their improvements and
abandon their homes for territories
where they may live and thrive under
more liberal policy. Their e%pul-
sion by hostile law would be the
greatest disaster that could be con-
ceived to happen to the state al large;
and TO the numerous and prosperous
towns, from fort Worth westward and
northwestward, dependent upon the
trade of the cattle country, 1t would
mean violent death. Three-fourths Of
the wholesale trade of Fort Worth is
drawn from the stock-raising section,
and the prosperity or decadence of that
section signifies the thrift or s,agna-
ton of Fort Worth's wholesale busi-
ness. Deprive her of that, and she
will De set back to where she was in
1874. The local trade Of the country
tributary to the town cannot sustain
the population and business now here,
not to speak of growth and expansion
in the future. The rich and growing
cities Of Abilene and Colorado, the
smaller towns of Jacksboro, Henrietta,
Sweetwater, Brentwood, Stephen
ville Wichita Falls, Montague, Decu
tur Vernon, and many others, all of
whose Wholesale trade comes to Fort
Worth, are equally interested with Us
in unfolding the stock interests, for
from those towns would leave them
stranded withouta any business support.
Neither they nor we of Fort Worth
can view with complacency the prop
osition to legislate adversel to the
business interests that enriches them
and us.
1t is not thought that the proposed
herd law will pass the Legislature. II
cannot pass if the people who will suf-
fer most by its passage earnestly ana
unanimously protest against it. The
Legislature appears sincere in it's desire
to obey the wishes of the people. If
those wishes are not made known they
must net on their own judgment and
on their own possibilities. The adj
vocates of the law are active and noisy.
Their clamor may create the impress
sion that they reflect the sentiments
OF majority of the people. Any such
idea rs this must be opposed ana
turned by expressions of the people in
their collective capacity. Let meet
ings be held in Fort Worth to protest
against herd law, and let them send
up resolutions to the representatives
and senators at Austin showing the
injustice and unfairness of such law.
Let Abilene and Colorado act in con-
cert with Fort Worth, and the whole
western country supplement the &C.
ton of these towns by like meetings
and protests. BY this means the tide
OF Legislative action will be quickly
turned against any such meretriciou,
proposition AZ that ofa restrictive herd
law. There is nothing more sensitive
to popular Influence than Legislative
opinion, and such a series of meetings
as have been specified, with strong
but temperate, resolutions, will insure
the defeat of Il herd law. The sooner
it is done, the safer for us.