Morning journal and courier., 1891-08-27
THE TEXAS CATTLE BARoNs. Their Day Was Brief, But It Was .
 Great Day While It Lasted.

lA
 The career of the COW baron was short but picturesque. Ten years ago he thought he owned Texas. He counted his long horns on hundred hills. He held con- ventions. Five hundred of him sat down to $5, 900 banquet at Dallas. They drank champagne from big goblets. Diamonds as big as oceans which grow in the Concho country sparkled on the bosom's of the ba- ron's wife and daughters. When he want ed legislation the baron went down to Aus tin and got it. He shouted "free grass" and he called the farmer who moved In and settled upon the water-courses of his ranch "nester." His cowboys were his feudal following, and knew no law but his decrees.
 One night near the end of the session of the legislature the barons and their friends entertained behind closed doors. It had been period of satisfactory law-making for the cattle interests. Everybody who was present felt good. A governor, who once said that Texas didn't want immigration, sat at the table. Speech after speech was made The cattle interests were eulogized | .'The hester" was ridiculed. Such newspap- CTS as had begun to rebel against the arro- Qance of the barons came in for hard raps, and finally the governor, in 8 spirit of fair play, called for the only newspaper man present to defend his craft. Nettled by the sarcastic filings to which he had been listening, the speaker replied, half an grily.
 | your sport tonight at the expense of the | despised 'nester.' You may think you are | strong enough to defy the press and public i sentiment; but let me tell you one thing: A man with hoe has poked his nose over | your wire fence and is looking at you to- | day. You'll kill him of course. I know that very we'll. 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'll see eight men with hoes in the same place. It | isn't in the nature of things, gentlemen, | for an acre of land which VIII raise twenty bushels of wheat to be given up | for all time to the possession of the 8 COW. Mark what tell you. In ten years
 the man with the hoe will have you on the
 run"
 | The barons laughed. But it was their
 '1ast banquet" They had never heard of
 "the man with the hoe" till then. Ten I
 necessarily long limit. He might have cut his time in two. Five years after the pre-
 diction was uttered the baron's reign was over. "The man with the hoe" was a
 reality. He had pair of nippers in his
 pocket and walked through the baron's
 fences. To-day "the man with the hoe" is
 everywhere. He is a Texas proverb As
 you get of the cars at Fort Worth his pie
 ture, ten feet high, confronts you. Yet in l n
 the baron and grew rich on the profits of
 his round-ups.
 One of the stories of the rapid rise and
 decline of the COW baron owes authorship
 to Colonel Jim Britton. In the days when
 Texas had 6 railroad commissionershir
 with only ornamental functions, Colonel
 Britton was appointed to fill it. He dis.
 covered the lack of law to make the office
 in any way efficient and sent in his resigns
 ton, saying that he did not care to draw {
 salary for doing nothing. There is mol
 another instance of this kind of conscien. tiousness in the latter years of pie-eating ir Texas. But while he was Commissions,
 Colonel Britton went out to Abilene. Thi time were the flush period of the cattlemen
 Millionaires was thick. At one of the ''ex } changes" of Abilene Colonel Britton was 3 witness to controversy between two O t the new millionaires. These cattle baron 3 had just returned from their first trips t New York, where they had gone to get ri, g of some of the profits and to have . roys @ time"
 - "Jim," said Jake, Chats a pretty fin
 watch you've got there.n
 ], "Yes," replied Jim. 'T got the ticke F of fellow in New York. It's the finest
 Abilene"
 s "WeIl," continued Jake, drawing or 's from his pocket, "hsse's better ous,n