The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-03-21
The RANGE COUNTRY.
OKLAHO1TA FARMERS Us. COW
MEN.

HsFdsmen at Last Crowded or the
Range Counery by the Man With the
Hoe.
The story of the winning Of the range
country of Oklahoma away from the
cowmen, for the benefit of the farmer,
is almost all told. The session of the
legislature now being held at Guthrie
will officially declare that Oklahoma is
a farming country, and that the man
with the herds must keep off the grow
ing crops of the man with the hoe.
The battle that has been fought from
township to township, beginning in the
eastern part of Oklahoma and becom-
ing fiercer as the line of Texas was ap-
preached, has not been all bloodless,
but it has been in the main a struggle
of numbers of poor people against a few
men with wealth and desire to retain
their long-held pasture privilege of gov
eminent lands. There has always been
assortment among the best-posted Ok
lahoma settlers that the short grass"
country, comprising the west half of
the territory, is untitled for the grow
n ing of crops, but is useful only as
grazing country. The homesteaders
who came in too late to acquire farms
in the fertile lands of the eastern range
of country were true pioneers. They
were willing to experiment with the
sshort grass and they filed homestead
claims in the range country. The cat
tlemen resented the intrusion, and the
trouble kept up all along the line, until
now there is very little land left in Ok
1ahoma that is not labelled mo thor
pughfare'' to the farmer
Perhaps the greatest struggle that the
settlers in the west of Oklahoma had in
their winning was in Roger Mills coun-
ty. This is one of the counties that
border on Texas. There the settlers
had the proposition of an actively adj
verse county government to contend
with, together with an organized and
hostile element Of cattlemen and cow
boys. The successes of the farmer de-
pended upon his ability to secure the
adoption of the herd law, local-option
arrangement by which the people Of
any subdivision of county might say
whether the cattle in that section
should be controlled and herded off the
crops or allowed free range, which
meant destruction of the crops. The
election on the herd-law proposition had
to be called as result of a majority of
the inhabitants of the subdivision petit
tioning for the same.
There was always something the mat
ter with the petition when it was pre-
scented to the county judge. Then "a
lawyer was employed to draft the petit
tion-the lawyer had to be brought
from a hundred miles to the east in Or
der to get one who would do the right
thing by the homesteaders-and petit
tion was framed that could not be de-
MED. The first election for Roger Mills
county was called. That was two years
ago. The Saturday before the Tuesday
upon which the vote was to be taken
the cowmen secured an injunction and
the election was restrained. That end
ed the attempt at that time. The stu
alton became one of sleepless nights
and days of toll for the man with
growing crop. The crops had been
planted in faith that the election would
be held. 1t was known that the propo-
sition would carry by vote of three to
one. 1t was a time when cattle were
mysteriously killed, and homesteaders
suddenly packed their effects in a prai-
RE schooner and drove out of the coun-
try. Sentiment and the necessity for
doing something, however, caused the
people on the farms to get close togeth-
err. The result Of the coming together
was the formation of the most peculiar
secret society in the whole southwest.
About the time of the failed election a
music teacher from Atchison, Kan,
f. filed a. jgood-looking quarter section of
Roger Mills county land and went to
live in a dugout there and started a
farm. He considered the cause Of the
1lornesteader and looked the situation
over Then he began the formation of
secret oath bound and carefully
guarded organization of western Okla
homa farmers. The order is called the
Farmers Protective association, and
has now at the age of one year MEM
bership of more than two thousand far
mers of the western part of the terrific
nv of Oklahoma, The order has set of
signs, grips and words, and meets once
d a month in twenty or more different
Il lodges.
The lodges of the Farmers Protective
association organized by the rawest
kind of an amateur farmer, have been
the cause of the cattlemen quitting the
government lands of Oklahoma. There
are now pastures that are made up of
many homesteaders filings-the en-
ployes Of the cowmen-all punched for
the purpose of making large area, but
/ the pastures are now fenced, and the
farmer has the benefit of the open I'M
disturbed by cattle. 1t is due to the Or
ganization of the secret order that
made the influence of the farmer felt,
mot only by the cattlemen, but by the