Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-10-21
THE CATTLE BARONS.
THEIR DAY WAS BRIEF, BUTT WAS
GREAT WHILE IT LASTED.

1
| the Man with the Hoe Came Along Too
| Fast for Them-Fulfllment of the Edi-
tors Prediction Uttered at the Feast.
! The career of the COW baron was short
but picturesque. Ten years ago he thought
| he owned Texas He counted his long
yentions Five hundred of him sat down
to 5000 banquet at Dallas. They drank
champagne from big goblets. Diamonds
as big as pecans which grow in the Concho
country sparkled on the bosoms of the
baron's wife and daughters. When he
I wanted legislation the baron went down to
Austin and got it. He shouted Free
grassl'' and he called the farmer who
moved in and settled upon the water
| courses of his range "a nester." His cow
boys were his feudal following and knew
no law but his DEGREES
One night near the end of the session of
the legislature the barons and their friends
entertained behind closed DOORS 1t had
| been period of satisfactory lawmaking
| for the cattle interests. Everybody who
was present felt good. A governor who
| once said that Texas didn't want immi-
grafton sat at the head of the table
Speech after speech was made. The cattle
interests were eulogized. 1.-THE hester"
was ridiculed. Such newspapers as had
begun to rebel against the arrogance of the
| barons came in for hard raps, and finally
the governor in spirit of fair play called
for the only newspaper man present to de-
| fend his craft. Nettled by the sarcastic
filings to which he had been listening, the
| speaker replied, half angrily:
Gentlemen" said he, you may have
your sport tonight at the expense of the
despised 'nester.' You may think you are
strong enough to defy the press and public
sentiment, but let me tell you one thing
A man with a hoe has poked his nose over
your wire fence and is looking at you to-
day. You'll kill him, of course. know
that very well. Tomorrow there'll be two
men with hoes looking over that same
fence. Kill the two, and tomorrow there'll
be four men with hoes looking at you.
Kill them, and tomorrow you'u see eight
men with hoes in the same place. 1t isn't
in the nature of things, gentlemen, for an
acre of land which will raise twenty bush
els of wheat to be given up for all time to
the possession of the five dollar cow Mark
what l tell you. In ten years the man with
the hoe will have YOU on the run"
The barons laughed. But it was their
last banquet" They had never heard of
the man with the hoe" till then. Ten
years. The prophet gave himself an
unnecessarily long limit. He might have
cut his time in two. Five years after the
prediction was uttered the baron's reign
was over. The man with the hoe" was
reality. He had a pair of nippers in his
pocket and walked through the baron's
fences. To-day the man with the hoe" is
everywhere. He is Texas proverb. AS
you get off the cars at Fort Worth his pic
ture, ten feet high, confronts you.
THE CATTLE COMPANY FEVER
In 1878 and 1879 stock cattle roamed over
three-fourths of Texas. The ranges
stretched from the Gulf to No Mans Land,
and from Fort Worth to FL Paso Those
cattle were worth eight dollars head
when there was any market at all for them.
They were called dogies in east Texas, sea
lions down by the Gulf and long horns in
the Panhandle. In 1881 the price had
crept up to Sl2.50 a head. Then the COW
baron burst his shell. In 1882 these same
cattle went to $22 30 a head and held that
for two years. There were l0,0OO, 900 of
them. Money poured in from the north
and east to buy at this advanced price
Cattle companies were formed, more than
hundred of them. Stock was sold right
and left. Blocks of it were taken with
avidity by men who had never seen Texas
and never expected to see it.
To one looking back upon that wild rush
into the cattle business, it seems as if a
mania must have taken possession of 9TH
erwise level headed men. Nobody can tell
the amount of capital which flowed in
from the north to be invested in cattle
But it never flowed back Everybody
loaded up, and then the prices began to
drop, drop, drop. They went clear back to
he, IL. l.. i
the tenderfoot and his money were parted
Fast as the baron's wealth waned, his
wealth in politics and his prestige in bust
ness departed faster. Five years after Dali
las had given the baron 5000 banquet
there was none in the commercial metrop-
oils to do him reverence. Five years after
the baron had been shown at Austin by
Colonel Bill Sterett the handwriting of
the man with hoe" on the wall, the leg
islature had decreed an end to free
grass" The baron WAS buying or leasing
the public land for his cattle to roam over.
The despised "nester" had shouldered the
hoe and was moving in steady ranks over
the ranges to the northwest, to the west
and to the southwest. 1t was a strange
transformation.
WHY THE STATE DID NOT SUFFER.
And there are still several counties to
uGtsE sSOule % the SURPRISES InaC
are taking place in this new country are
almost laughable. A man came down
from the north and discovered that Il little
way out of Fort Worth there was some
land naturally adapted to melons He
named his product the Sylvania cantaloup.
lie is growing 1000 acres of Syivania canta-
loups and shipping them to the Rocky
mountains Think of fruit in Texas! II
the youngsters who now beset the trains
at station after station with baskets of
peaches and pears that come around few
years ago, the cowboys would have used
the fruit to do the William Tell act
1t WAS the romance of the COW business
which departed with the cattle baron. The
reality is still here. John X. Hoxie, who
built the million dollar packing house in
Fort Worth, says Texas has gained these
grain growers and lost nothing in live
stock. He had a discussion not long ago
with some fellow capitalists who were
mourning the supposed 'decadence of the
cattle industry Mr.. Hoxie disputed their