Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-03-18
REC0LLEC1IONS Of The
De MORtS PACKING CO.
SOME EARLY HISTORY By ONE
WHO KNOWS AND WAS ON
THE GROUND.
TELLS OF SOME MISTAKEN IDEAS
OF THE LIFE OF COLONEL
ROOSEVELT.

ROOSEVELT.
Medora, N. D., March 17.-(Spec
ial.)-Some sixty years ago when W.
were very small boy, living il
Maryland, persons would be pointe'
out to us who had seen Georg'
Washington. We could always see ;
halo around their heads, or at leas
We thought there was one there. TIT
charge Of the Light Brigade, we re
member reading when we were young
and were led to believe there were
only six hundred men. We know nov
that TennysOn was mistaken, for We
have seen ten thousand men who
were in the charge, at least they
claimed to have been. 1t was, to us
surprising how many there were
some ten years ago, who had Slept
in the same blanket with Teddy. The
blanket story having become some
what stale, persons now come for
ward to tell about his ranching days
again; days that we supposed were
forgotten about.
Today We have had the pleasure
of reading real pipe dream. This
dream is published in the Sunday
Minneapolis Tribune, and is supposed
to be a dream of one Thomas A.
Clark, an old Argus man. Mr.. Clark
is trying to take from our Teddy all
his glory as broncho buster and
cowboy. Heaven save us and Ted
dy. Mr.. Clark tells us how the
shrewd packing barons squeezed
Teddy" how he was engaged with
de Mores in the old Medora Packing
plant some twenty odd years ago and
how the packers froze him and de
Mores out of business. The only
truth We can find in his article is
that there were such men as de
Mores and Roosevelt at Medora in the
early eighties. To make sure of this
matter We are now going to write,
we have looked up the records of the
old de Mores company, going back
more than twenty-five years. The
records do not show the name of
Theodore Roosevelt, neither as
stakeholder Or as seller to said cor
poration; neither do they show that
de MOres, or his company ever pur-
chased a single head of stock from
Mr.. Roosevelt. Mr.. Roosevelt was
a cattle raiser, while de Mores was a
cattle slaughterer.
"The shrewd packing barons" had
nothing to do with the success or the,
of de Mores. De Mores
found that to slaughter cattle on the
range, a long way from market, and
where they could only be found in a J
fit condition for the market about
four months in the year, did not pay, /
and the business was closed down.
This Medora plant, having been start
ed by French nobleman, received
huch notority all over the western
country. We will state for the bene- !:
fit Of those who may wish to know,
that several yeas before the coming
Of de Mores, there were similar plants
started at Victoria, Columbus and
Rockport, Texas; also at Sherman,
and even after de Mores
started here there was one opened at
Miles City, Mont. These were all
failures and from the same cause as
the failure here. For the sake of H.
lustration We will remark that if it
were profitable to slaughter cattle on
the range the "shrewd packing ba-
rons" would have been doing these
many years. So much for de Mores. !,
Let us now pay our attention to
Mr.. Roosevelt and his ranching. This
was an Indian country until the ad-
vent of the N. P. graders in 1879, !
when military cantonment was es-
tablished at the crossing of the Little
Missouri, when hunters came in, and, :
say two years afterwards, stockmen
began placing cattle on the range. !
OF the climatic conditions of the
country little was known, but the
country being full of buffalo and other
wild game, the assumption was, If
such could live, so could domestic
cattle. This was a case of misiudg-
ment, or want of a proper knowledge
Of natural history. There being no
cattle in the country, buyers went to
the eastern states and purchased ma
tive cattle; cattle which by long do
mestication were, unfit to rustic a liv- |
ing in the hard winters of this cold
Mr.. Roosevelt, like others,
purchased eastern cattle, and when
the very severe winter of 1867 came
ne, with many others, lost. But in
the end. we do not think he lost very
much, If anything. He remained IN
the business until 1896, and we fully
believe he went out whole. We will
say that by 1896 it was found the
range was no longer suitable for large
herds, and all other owners of large
herds went out Of the business at
about the same time.
The editor of this paper knows
the writer knows what he is
writing about, or not.