The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1947-10-17

The social forces of the mining
frontier, both gold and copper, suggest
the familiar plot of western movie.
Montana organized her vigilantes to
fight off and eliminate her road
agents" the famous Sheriff Plummer
gang. The mining camps were filled
with the usual saloons, "dance-halls,"
bawdy houses, gambling, prostitution:
all the customary targets of decent
people modified by struggling from
tier churches.
The cattle frontier in Montana like
wise suggests the well-known western
scenario. Cattlemen were menaced by
thieves and by Indians. Often, of
course, the poor Indian was the I'M
whiting scapegoat of a white cattle
thief The Yellowstone Journal of
Miles City editorialized on March 21,
1880: "The Indians of the Crow res
ervation are dying at the rate of 70
day from measles and scarlet rash.
If all the Indians in this country could
be thus afflicted the Indian problem
would soon be solved" There were,
moreover, the nagging problems of
weather, prices, transportation. By
the eighties cattlemen were searching
for new grazing lands, and the strug-
gle for space for large and for small
cattle spreads became acute. Gradu-
ally the open range became unavail-
able, and cattlemen turned-much of
the cowboys disgust-to the agricuI-
tural pursuits of hay harvesting and
storing in order to solve the problems
of winter feed
AS the open range system broke
down and the ranges became clear,
the sheep-men mo Ted in with their
herds Often the range could not sup
port them, and often cattleman and
sheep-man clashed over the use of the
customary range" as the legal phrase
went. Public sentiment usually ran
against the sheep-men. Struggle con-
tinued throughout the eighties and
'nineties in many parts of the west,
but it was relatively slight in Mon
tana. AS Harold Briggs has pointed
out This was due to the fact that
the cattlemen had never occupied the
prominent position in Montana that
they had in Wyoming The mining
and agricultural interests were far too
strong to allow such domination, and,
second, the presence of newly opened
Indian country in northern and eastern
Montana made it possible for the open
range to continue for some time I'M
disturbed by the small farmer and
small rancher."
Farming-AIways An Uphill Struggle
The agricultural frontier was not
without it's struggles. There were the
not quite expected and always depre-
Gated bouts with severe heat and cold
and drouth. Insects, mainly grass
hoppers, took their toll. And the
fight for easier, cheaper credit was a
running battle, paralleling the expe-
rience of states farther east Money
was scarce, interest rates were high.
legally high, for the authorities wanted
to attract new capital into the country.
Demand for more wheat brought with
it demand for more machinery. The
latter was very expensive; farms were
and they were lost, in a
manner quite common in the west
Many settlers played game with loan
companies, getting their loans and
moving on; and agents recommended
loans in order to secure fees.
The industrialization of Montana has
been perhaps the most dramatic phase
of the states development and has
the most attention. The
aimed at the control of
the vast mineral resources, culminat-
ing in the leadership of the Anaconda
Copper Mining Company, has been
described in many places. These man.
euvers did not stop with the minerals
Of the state but sought out it's people
and their institutions, spinning a web
of intrigue and intimidation which
still persists in Montana. A sugges-
ton of the strength of this social force
in Montana may be obtained from the
following vigorous comment by Joseph
Kinsey Howard:
The Sixth FIoor-BIack Heart of
Montana
Butte is the black heart of Mon
tana, feared and trusted. From the
sixth floor of one of it's office build
ings go forth the corporate COM
mands to politicians preachers, and
press, all the pensioners and servile
penny-a-liners of corporate capital
ISM"
Through the Montana drama runs
4 human factor which must not, for
any reason, be neglected. Briggs
closes his study of the Frontiers of
the Northwest by attending to it.
"The true story of western settle
ment is best told when the broken