Evening star., 1934-08-19
BY OREN ARNOLD.

BY OXEN ARNOLD.
HE American cowboy hard -muscled
hero of the Wild West, is threatened
(like the big bad wolff with having
his fangs pulled and becoming an out
and-out sissy! A revolutionary new
deal for the little dogies and other
bovines of the range is the cause of his latest
degradation.
After century or so of having a red-hot iron
slapped onto their fanks in formal range chris
Jennings the cattle are now being branded with
n toothbrush and a little can of ''paint"i
This much more ef1cient new method is fine
Tor the cows, but 1t Is sinking cowboy traditions
deeper and deeper into mire of shame!
Range workers have already had the con-
Eliminating city dudes to contend with-most
real cowmen feeling themselves disgraced when
forced to herd dudes for money And right on
top Of it all have come recent headlines from
London, where Parliament asked to fore
stall rodeo artist Tex Austin from bulldogging
or otherwise annoying steers It's sad, sad
Summer for cowboys.
Tex tried to bluSter his way through at first
TO grin and take the English edict as q Joke
He had arena full of fine riders and per-
formers over there, right out of Texas and
points West. But the English-who see no
cruelty in their dogs trailing and killing q
little fox-did see cruelty when a cowboy risked
his life wrestling 1,000-pound steer.
Bow-legged Tex got raving mad and prob
ably felt like shooting out every light in Plea
-dilly Circus until some friend calmed him. But
legally there wasn't thing he could do.
A BORROWER, there's nothing the less famous
wi and less influential waddies in Wyoming
and New Mexico and Arizona and Texas can
do about this new deal in branding. The ire
sistible force of progress has taken most of the
pain and trouble-but also most of the pic
tureSque color-out of the roundup The
branding iron, age-old scepter of power with
which cattle barons once monogrammed their
steers, is soon to be a museum piece and moth
ing more.
1t seems queer that somebody didn't stumble
onto this new toothbrush branding long ago.
(Any kind of brush will do of course; an old
toothbrush Is just conveniently Because the
"paint" that has been found most successful
to date is just chemical solution, frequently
built upon a base of common croton oil.
This bistering extract is derived from seeds
of the croton plant, large genus of trees and
shrubs. Some smart chemist got to wondering
why cattle men didn't use it. He pointed out
that its application and effect painless. but
that the design it etches through COW hair and
into the skin is as visible and nearly as perma-
nent as that done with a red-hot iron Pretty
soon the idea began to drift around.
There are several solutions in use. Perhaps
the most successful is one devised by DR..
A. j. Stockenburg Of Lindsborg Kans, whose
main ingredient is sodium hydroxide, a caustic
prepared a coal tar base. Experts believe
that this leaves more permanent mark than
does the croton oil soution-which also Is
frequently used in combination with sodium
hydroSdde.
So that today paint branding" is no longer
experimental, but a successful new system
adopted widely, especially in New Mexico and
Arizona New Mexico claims the honor Of
introducing it.
n Is therefore no longer necessary for the
wandering cowboy to strap iron onto his
saddle, get of and build fire every time he