The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-09-19
RINGS In THE WILD WEST.
cLEVELANo's WAR ON MoNoPousTS
Some OF the s'Industries' Which He Has
Destroyed-The Land Grabbers, the
Cattle Stenlers and the Mining
Sharks All Against Him.


transferred from our diplomatic service
in South America to private life, has been
interviewed by THE SENTINEL upon the
political outlook of Colorado, and cor
rectly places the state in the Harrison
column. He says Cleveland's administra-
ton has been disastrous TO some OF Colo
radios industries. / corroborate his state
ment, and add that Cleveland has not
only injured, but destroyed some of the
most profitable businesses of the West.
But first l will give four reasons why
Colorado is against Cleveland:
l. A United States senator is to be
elected next winter, and four millionaire
mine-owners, including Millionaire Tabor
and ex-senator Hill, and two railroad
magnates, Atty Walcott of the Denver x
Rio Grande and President Evans of the
Denver IL Ft. Worth, are candidates. The
Doodle all these money bags will circulate
to carry the state and legislature Will carry
along the electoral ticket. The present
governor is democrat, and the last legis-
lature had only one republican majority
on joint ballot.
=.
ministration, combined the remunerative
business OF raising cattle on the free range
and robbing the government of its public
lands along all the streams through fraud
| ulent entries made by hired ''proies-
sional pre-empters and cowboys. in
| order to mOnopolize the water privilege
and keep off actual settlers-are against
Cleveland because the land Office, under
the able and honest management Of COM
missioners Sparks and Stockslsger, revoked
the fraudulent entries not already
proved up" by their republican prede-
cessors and have successfully checked fur
ther land-grabbing.
8. Ex-officials expecting re-appoint-
ment, land sharks, irresponsible men who
make q business of locating" lands for
corporations, lumbermen who divested
the public lands of timber-some OF whom
were sent to the penitentiary for this Of
tense and will be out in time TO vOte-are
all against Cleveland, because under his
rule their Occupation is gone"
4. Most of the new settlers come from
Kansas and Iowa, the republican breeding
ground, and are also against Cleveland,
because they always vote everything la
beled Republican" whether free whisky,
high taxes, dear clothing and the devil
goes with it or not.
Everybody will remember that within
a month following his Inauguration, Cleve-
land ordered the cattlemen to remove the
fences erected upon the public lands
erected, apprcTingly during republican
rUle-that an Englishman With 10000
acres of government land under fence
near Trinidad shot at the federal officers
who undertook to remove them and was
in return severely wounded; that the
army had to be used to remove the fences
of the English and Scotch companies in
Wyoming; that these Englishmen resisted
the United States authorities with armed
cowboys; that before six months of ''free
trade" rule all unlawful fences in the West
had been removed. These fences cost the
"catte barons" more than 100000,
which Cleveland caused to be destroyed.
In reviewing the decline OF the range
cattle industry, the Colorado Field and
Farm, whose editor is q republican, on
August 4, very truthfully SAYS:
Aside from these reasons tor failure there are
others that have helped on the destruction of
the industry in Colorado and Wyoming. The
investors in cattle about ten and twelve years
ago became too greedy to possess the earth,
and to do il they invested thousands and hun
dreds of thousands OF dollars IN barbed wire
and fence posts and encircled the public
domain-millions and millions Of aeres-in-
tending that the sheep herder and the bona fide
settler-the man with the plow, seed drill and
reaper-should have no hold on the green
earth while they needed it for their lowing
herds.
Then came the government with its agents,
sometimes with its army, and ordered the
destruction of the illegal fences and the
country opened to settlement. This movement
alone cost the cattlehoders OF the state and
Wyoming not less than million dollars in loss.
Many of the herds had been bonded to pay for
this wire that the investors had bought and
were i'll prepared TO lose.
The fences were not the only loss. I'M
mediately after the removal OF the fences,
actual settlers, 'the man with plow, seed
drill and reaper" came in from the states
and crowded out the cattle men, and to-
day eastern Colorado is all settled mp,
where, three years ago, the COWBOYS,
COWS and cayotes were lords OF the land.
These "grangers," as the cowboys call
them, are crowding upon the knights OF
the branding-iron all over the West, and
have taken up so much of the public
lands that where there were forty acres
per COW on tho range three years ago,
there are not five acres to-day, and as it
takes, on an average, twenty acres 70 raise
q steer, 250,000 head of cattle died last
winter in Colorado alone from starvation.
Many extensive ranges have been wiped
out by homesteaders and large cattle
companies, of which the Swan land and
cattle company of Scotland. with ranges in
Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, were
the most extensive, failed, and many
"cattle kings" have been beggared.e :. Dur
ing the past year cattlemen have been re-
ducing their herds or winding mp busi-
ness, and the result is a "glut" in the
market There is no demand for cows at
SIS which brought $40 in 1855. A three
year-old steer sells for SD 10 $l7. And
vet the people of Indiana, and the whole
country east of the Missouri river, pay as
much for beef as when steers sold for $40
to $50 Why is it? Docs the butcher
pocket the difference? No. The range
beef market is controlled by Chicago,
Kansas City, Omaha and St. Louis men,
who are in trust-one OF those "priyate
affairs with which Blaine says Presi-
dent Cleveland has no particular right to
interfere" Ask Phil Armour and the
others of the trust who stand between you
and the cheap beef of the range country,
who they are for for president, and you
will find out that they are for Blaine and
Harrison, who will not interfere IN their
'private affairs"
until Ceveland's administration the West
was in the hands of cattlemen. They had
the banks, the merchants, the boards of
trade, the press, the federal state and
county officials and the legislatures-all
arrogantly arrayed against the despised
'grangers." Those who undertook farm
ing had their fences cut down by cowboys
and crops destroyed by cattle. There was
no redress from officials of the state or