THE WYOMING STOCK GROWERS’ ASSOCIATION, THROUGH ITS OFFICERS ENDORSES
THE INVASION
April 4th, 1893, the Wyoming Stock Growers’ Association met in annual
session at the court house in the city of Cheyenne. John Clay, Jr., of
Chicago, President of the Association, was in the chair, and according
to the report of the committee on credentials, there were 99 members in
good standing.
Mr. Clay delivered quite a lengthy address immediately after calling
the meeting to order, and after alluding to the general situation of
the cattle industry and talking about bad markets, etc., etc., he said:
“Not content with the imposition of financial and climatic troubles
another burden had to be added to our lot. After a long period of
forbearance and patience from range depredations, both petty and
wholesale, the trouble culminated a year ago and the so-called invasion
of Johnson County took place, which ended unfortunately and gave
rise to an almost interminable amount of bad blood, politically and
socially.”
After moralizing for some time on the low state of Wyoming public
sentiment that he admitted was with the Johnson County settlers and
against invaders, he continued as follows:
“While the invasion is now consigned to history, it developed during
its progress last spring and the long, weary summer months which
followed a spirit of admiration from all classes of the men (the very
flower of Wyoming’s citizens) who had taken part in the expedition.
Under the most trying circumstances they stood shoulder to shoulder,
scarce a murmur escaping them. Gentlemen, I am not here to defend
these parties. Technically, legally, they did wrong, but I consider it
no mean privilege to stand in this prominent position today and say
that I count everyone of them a friend. Notwithstanding their errors
of judgment, we respect them for their manliness, for their supreme
courage under the adverse fire of calumny and the usual kicking a man
gets when he is down. There will be a day of retribution, and the
traitors in the camp and in the field will be winnowed like wheat from
the chaff.”
Later in the day when “the good of the order” was sprung for general
discussion, Henry G. Hay, treasurer of the association, closed a speech
of general approval of the stockmen’s methods of cattle seizure by the
inspectors of the Live Stock Commission, intimidation, etc., with the
following sentence: “I love the association for the enemies it has
made, as they are nearly all thieves and rustlers.”
These utterances of the officials of the stock association in an open,
public meeting, and the hearty endorsement they received from the
ninety and nine members present, very clearly prove that the public was
right when it declared at the time of the invasion, the responsibility
of that outrage rested upon the Wyoming Stock Growers’ Association.
The invaders and the stock association are now quite generally used as
synonymous terms among the people.
An analysis of these “official utterances” is unnecessary because each
reader will do that for himself, but it is well, perhaps, to call
attention to the threat made in the closing sentence of John Clay,
Jr.’s speech: “There will be a day of retribution.” Is this a warning
that there will be another invasion? Another band of hired assassins
brought into the state to murder and burn, and in such numbers as to
overcome all resistance? Is another and greater attempt to be made to
overthrow the state constitution, drive the settlers from their homes
and reinstate the cowboy as the ruler of the country? That is the plain
English of the “Official threat.” But he was probably talking through
his hat.
It might be pertinent to here inject this inquiry: “Can an organization
whose officers openly countenance murder, arson and body-burning, and
denounce all who differ from them in opinion as thieves and rustlers,
be looked upon by a community as an upholder of the majesty of the law
and a friend of society?”