The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-11-15

ANoo - LIZ &c E& F
camp in the American west. There are
more murders, robberies, atrocious as.
saults. brutal outrages on women and
children, and other heinous and das.
tardly crimes, in your Tammany-curs-
ed city, every twelve months, than
there have ever been in all the min
ing camps from the Yukon to the Rio
Grande put together in any ten years
of their history.
In the widest days Of Deadwood-
the widest mining camp this hemi-
sphere, or perhaps the world, has ever
seen-life and property were safer in
the rugged gulches of the Black Hills
than they are on half your streets and
avenues today; and the standard of
honor was higher in Dick Richards sa-
loon or Colorado Charley's gambling
hell than it is in a large proportion of
your political headquarters, your mu-
nicipal council halls, your court rooms
and your gilded social clubs.
Leadville, Cripple Creek, Mercur,
Baker City, Sumpter, Butte, Rossland
and Dawson are, and always have
been, models of the prayer book
"quiet and peaceable living, in all god
illness and honesty" as compared-or
rather contrasted, for there is 10 com.
parison-with any Tammanyized ward
or district on Manhattan island, either
above or ''below Fourteenth street."
For t%hirty-odd years, from Bill
Tweed and his gang to Dick Croker
and his gang, your whole municipal
government, with rare and brief inter-
walls Of semi-decency, has been a pro-
longed, hideous debauch, a carnival Of
crime and outrage and shame; and
your chosen rulers have been beastly
thugs and thieves, whom no typical
western mining camp would ever have
tolerated twenty-four hours longer
than was necessary to bring them, a
vigilance committee and a few stout
lariats together.
For the monstrous misrule of these
lnspeakable scapehells-these Crokers
and Sullivans, Deverys, Murphys, Van
Wycks, fingers, Frommes, ct id Omne
genus hellionorum-who have made
the very name of your city "a kissing
and a byword," a proverb Of infamy
throughout creation-you give up$100,-
100000 a year in pirate taxes, and at
least 500, 100000 more in blackmail,
thievage, pillage,i fraudulent contracts
and franchises, bagnio tribute, rake
offs and shake-downs, and miscellan-
eous and assorted blood money and
wages of sin!
That is a gigantic, appalling total of
5000, 000, 900 a year-within a trife of
the entire expenses Of the United
States government, with it's 51,000,000
people in 1SS0-and twenty times more
than the aggregate of all the western
train robberies and mining camp hold
ups since the Louisiana purchase
|.wrung out of your wretched little is
land population annually, to pay for
moated oranges, ~racehorses and bull
dogs in England, Observation-Disclosures
mansions on Fifth avenue, and gin
m~ill-and-dive attractions and decora-
li.,Ds in the red-light districts, for
your boss thieves and head hellions,
whose despotism of iniquity is unpar-
alleled in ~Christendom, and unsurpass-
ed in Chicago or Constantinople!
The tiger, with it's penitentiary
stripes, is their fttest emblem, and
For my pocket all the time" their
characteristic motto. In any typical
western mining camp we would hang
the whole foul lot before tomorrow's
sun went down, and then chant "Te
Deums'' over pious duty done! Until
yon have driven the last n of them
to the gallows, a prison eel. or eternal
exile, never again compare your Gro
kerville with any place or thing west
of Hoboken!
Yours westernly Indignantly,
P. DOMAIN.
New York, November 5.
RANGE AND THE SETTLER.
Yellowstone Journal: This is a
season of the year for activity of the.