The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1886-04-15
A National Cattle Trail

|! have said that the annual drive
from Texas will probably be from $780,
GOO to 1,000,0 900 cattle. A large pro
portion of these will be stock cattle
COWS, heifers, and young steers. Where
are these cattle to be held until fit for
market? At the Cattle Growers Con-
yention, held in st. Louis, November.
1884, the Texas cattle-growers were un-
anlmous in advocating the creation of a
national cattle trail, six miles wide, and
| extending from Texas to our northern
boundary. The Northern graziers op-
posed the proposed trail on the ground
that the Texas cattle were infected with
q disease known in the business as the
| Spanish fever. They asserted-and
truthfully, that the driving of through
Texan cattle along the trail would
infect their herds. The Spanish fever
does not injure Texas cattle; but all ma
tive cattle-that is, all Northern stock,
| no matter what their blood-catch the
disease by grazing on the ground over
which through Texas cattle have passed.
and they generally die. Here were two
| parties disputing about fact that both
knew to be fact, both cunningly en-
deavoring to conceal their real hopes
and fears. There are Territorial and
State laws in force in the West that for
bid the driving of through Texas cat
tie on to many ranges. A national law
enacted for the purpose of providing a
cattle trail would override these local
laws, which many lawyers pronounce
unconstitutional, and open the Northern
grazing ground to the Texas cattle. The
Southern stock-growers want the trail
created so that they can drive young
steers that are strong enough to endure
the severe winters of the Northwest
through to the bunch and buffalo grass
pastures of Wyoming and Montana in
one season, and so avert overstocking
their home range, which is secure from
invasion of Northern herds, as no ma
tive cattle can be driven ON to the graz
ing ground of Texas and live. The
Spanish fever stalks abroad there. The
Northern men assert and re-assert that
the opening of the trail would endanger
their herds. They ignore the fact that
the first heavy frost kills the Spanish
fever, and ends all danger. They en-
deavor to conceal their real reason for
opposing the opening of the trail, which |
is the danger of overstocking the North
ern grazing ground if the Texas men |
are allowed to drive their surplus young |
steers there. They dread having from |
200, 900 to 100000 young steers annually
driven North to feed on a range that |
they all realize will, under the present
land laws, be speedily overstocked, and |
eventually destroyed, and DESTROYED by
the greed of the cattle men.
Underlying all talk of renting the
public lands, or of buying them, and of
any and all schemes concerning the dis.
position to be made of the public do
main that emanate from the cattle
growers, is the determined purpose to
secure the land, and to place it under
the control of the cattle-growing asso-
Citations, and then limit the number of
cattle that shall be allowed to Craze on
it. The spectre that is ever present to
the Northern cattle-growers is over
stocking. All talk Of their desire to
conserve the public domain is false.
They desire to secure absolute possess
sion of the range; and il they succeed,
they will as surely stop agricultural set
tiers from entering the arid belt to ac-
quire low-lying farms along the streams
as if they owned the land in fee-simple.
-Frank Witkeson, in Harper's Nigga
zine for ApriL.