The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1900-02-20
SLANDERING BILLINGS
A Bozeman Man and Newspaper
Attempt to Ridicule
This City.
THEY GET VERY GAY
Assume That the Farmers Are Fools
and the Residents Of Bill
ings Robbers.

The people Of this city will read with
interest the article published below,
taken from the last issue Of the Boze.
man Avant Courier. They will not,
however, agree with the Courier's in.
formant that Billings has boom, that
il is prosperous because the gambling
and other houses are wide open, or that
a farmer never makes his escape from
this city with cent in his pockets. AS
a matter of fact, Billings has not now,
nor never has had bonn. 1t does not
want or need one. The city is grow
ing steadily and is prosperous because
the people here have confidence in its
future; it is a good town because it
draws trade from an immense scope of
oodntry and because the farmers mar
ket all the hay and grain they raise BY
feeding it to stock. There are no
"wide open" gambling houses here and
the Bozeman man & description of how
the people Of Billings "do" the
farmers is simply ridiculous. And
right here we will advise the Bozeman
man, who says he is going to move to
this city, that if he comes here with
the idea that he il going to "do' the
farmers, he will most likely be "done"
himself. The farmers around Billings
are not fools; neither are they Mis-
sourians, who sit around town and
whittle store boxes and have "to bo
shown" everything before they will
believe. Instead, they are an intelll-
gent. wide.awake and hustling class of
people, who are making money because
they work for it. They take as much
pride in Billings as do the residents of
the city; the farmers send their child
rem here to school and build homes in
town while they are being educated.
We plead guilty to Billings being a
"good" town, and Bozeman might also
be one II the people there had half the
energy and get-up-and.get about them
as they have in this city. But our
sleepy neighbor will never grow to be q
good town by attempting to run down
or ridioule other towns that are good.
aud the Bozeman man who 80 falsely
describes the conditions in Billings is
simply fool or an ass. or both. Read
what he says, and observe how the
Courier swallows the bait whole and
attempts to be funny at the expense Of
Billings. 1t heads its article, "Tlow
They DO the Farmer" 'How They
Gould Do Him Worse; Being Disser-
tation on How to Make Town Good. !"
Then it prints this rot:
A resident Of Bozeman, who has re-
GENTLY returned from Billings, says that
that town is on the boom; regular
Klondike. as it were. He gives as
reason for this prosperity, the fact that
all the gambling aud other houses are
"wide open," and farmer never
makes his escape with cent in his
pockets. The farmers all have money,
he says, which they want to- spend If
they can do so in their own way; and
the touts and gamblers keep the money
circulating, and make times good
But In Bozeman, he says, things are
different. Hore the people don't know
a good thing in other words, a farmer
WHEN they see it walking along the
street. He says that the farmers here
have as much money as they have at
Billings-in fact, that farmers always
have money-but being deprived of a
chance to spend it with plasure and
profit, the sordid fellows put in the
banks or buy groceries or stock or new
farms; the gamblers and touts don't
got it. so it don't circulate. He closed
his lecture on the new political coon.
omy by saying that he is going to Bill.
ings, he Beautiful.
TIN Courier would suggest few ad-
ditions to this admirable scheme for
making u town "good. Not all far.
mers will gamble; the uppatriots have
been known to walk past gambling
house and into grocery store to buy
things for themselves, and even to carry
home the change Tor the babies. II
onRht to be consistent policy to burn
these stores; also to plant masked Cat
ling guns at each road leading out of
town, und squad to search every far
mer who passed ont. Take his clothes.
too. II they were good; they would help
keep the town warm" A bowie.
knife aud sawed.off shotgun brigade
should be- organized to look after the
farmers who bring their children to
the tnwn schools for the winter; being
farmers, they should contribute to the
general "Rood, The city might ad.
veItise for attractions. to catch the far.
mers AZ distance; say, in the follow.
Ing order Of cumulative interest: la