The professional world. (Columbia, Mo.) 1901-192?, 1903-04-10
WON FROM THE COWBOYS.

III OF the farmer is almost all lUlu.
The session of the legislature now be-
ing held at Guthrie will officially de-
clare that Oklahoma is a farming
country and that the man with the
herds must keep OH the growing
crops of the man with the hoe.
The battle that has been fought
from township to towr ship, begin
ming in the east part OF Oklahoma
and becoming fiercer as the line of
Texas was approached. has not been
all b~loodless, but it has been in the
main a struggle of numbers of poor
people against a few men with wealth
and n desire to retain their long-held
pasture privilege of government
lands. There has always been a senti-
ment among the b~est-posted Okla
homa settlers that the "short-grass"
country. comprising the west half of
the territory, is untitled for the grow
ing of crops. but is useful only as a
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 short grass" and they filed home
stead claims in the range country.
The cattlemen resented the intrusion.
and the trouble kept up all along the
line. until now there is very little
land left in Oklahoma that is not la
belled mo thoroughfare" to the
farmer.
Perhaps the greatest struggle hat
the settlers in the west of Oklahoma
had in their winning was in Roger
Mills county. This is one of the coun-
ties that border on Texas. There the
settlers had the proposition of an &C.
lively adverse county government to
cortend with. together with an organ
ized and hostile element of cattlemen
and cowboys. The success of the
farmer depended upon his ability to
ecure the adoption of the herd law, a
lo%cal-option arrangement by which
the people of any subdivision of a
county might say whether the cattle
in that section should be berded of
the crops or allowed free range.
which meant destruction of the crops.
The election on the herd-law propo-
sition had to be called DIS n result of
a majority of the inhabitants of the
subdivision petitioning for the same.
There was always something the
matter with the petition when it was
presented to the county Judge. Then
a lawyer was employed to draft the
p~etitiOn-the lawyer had to be
brought from a hundred miles to the
east in order to get one who would
do the right thing by the homestead
erS-and a petition was framed that
could not be denied. The first cleo.
ton for Roger Mills county was. call
ed. 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
ended the attempt at that time. The
situation became one of ~sleepless
nights and days of toll for the man
with a growing crop. The crops had
been planted in faith that the cleo
ton would be held. 1t was known
that the proposition would carry by a
vote of three to one. 1t was a time
when cattle were mysteriously killed.
and homesteaders suddenly packed
their effects in a prairie schooner and
drove ont of the country. Sentiment
and the necessity for doing something
however, caused the people on the
farms to get close together. The re-
suit of the coming together was the
formation of the most peculiar secret
society in the whole Southwest.
About the time of the failed cleo
ton a music teacher from Atchison.
Kan, filed a good-looking quarter sec
ton of Roger Mills county land and
went to live in a dugOut there and
started a farm. He considered the
cause of the homesteader and looked
the situation over. Then he began
the formation of a secret o%ath-bound
and carefully guarded organization of
western Oklahoma farmers. This
order is called the Farmers Protec-
tive association, and has no at the
age OF one year a membership of
more than 1000 farmers of the west
; ern part of the territory of Oklahoma.
The order has a set of signs, grips
and words, and meets once a month
in 20 OF more different lodges.
The lodges of the Farmers Protec-
a tive association, organized by the
: rawest kind of an amateur farmer.
have been the cause of the cattlemen
f quitting the government lands of Ok
lahoma. There are now pastures that
n are made up of many homesteaders
filings-the employees of the cowmen
i all punched for the purpose OF MAX
f ing a large area. but the pastures are
now fenced. and the farmer has the
benefit of the open undisturbed by
cattle. 1t is due to the organization
of the secret order that made the in
y fuence of the farmer felt, not only by
the cattlemen, but by the men who
knew that their tenure in office de-
pended upon getting the votes of the
Z people. The farmers of Oklahoma
@ who have one into the secret order
h to save their homes and make the
building of them on a scale in keeping
r with the possibilities of the situation,
d have become a great power in the pol
itics of the territory as a result of
n their organization. They assert. how
ever, that thev have no mission save
the rights of the homesteader to pro
}, lection in his claim and crops.