CHAPTER XI.

MARTIAL LAW THREATENED--PETITION OF THE INVADERS TO ACTING GOVERNOR BARBER--PRESIDENT HARRISON ISSUES A THREATENING MESSAGE TO WYOMING CITIZENS--COLORED TROOPS QUARTERED IN THE NORTH

When the captured cattlemen got fairly warmed up in their quarters at Fort Russell and had an opportunity to read the newspapers of this state and from the great outside world, they discovered that public sentiment was universally against them, save where the papers had been unduly influenced, either by money or some other power. Accordingly the threats of another raid became less violent and the brains of the baffled “cattle kings” commenced to work on other lines. The first brilliant thought that seemed to be meaty was martial law in the northern counties. This would mean the disarmament of the people of three or four counties and the placing of all the machinery of the law into the hands of the friends of the cattlemen to be specially run in their interests. It would really mean the barring out of all new settlers and the driving out of many already located, through the oppression always following the enforcement of martial law and the overthrow of the civil authorities.

Impressed with the importance of this idea and still clinging to the belief that the stockmen could control the politics and state policy as of old, the following petition was presented during the summer of 1892:

Petition for Martial Law

To His Excellency, the Governor, Cheyenne, Wyoming:

Sir: The undersigned respectfully represent that they are the owners of and are interested in, cattle and horses, located and ranging in the county of Johnson, in the State of Wyoming, and in the territory adjacent to said county; that they are citizens of the State of Wyoming and of other states in the Union, and as such are entitled to the equal protection of the law, and to the protection of their property against theft and depredations, and that the county of Johnson and the territory adjacent thereto, is chiefly composed of unclosed lands, especially adapted to grazing, and the livestock of your petitioners and others ranging thereon is worth several millions of dollars.

And your petitioners further represent that for several years the stealing and misbranding of live stock in the vicinity named has been of frequent occurrence, and has been rapidly growing more prevalent, and that stock thieves continually ride the range and place their brands upon the unbranded calves of other owners and change and alter the brands upon the branded live stock of others, thereby destroying all means of identifying the true ownership thereof. These stock thieves have, during the past year, greatly intimidated and threatened other residents in that vicinity, and have suppressed, by threatened violence, almost all opposition to their unlawful calling and occupation. Their influence, by reason of their numbers, and by their methods of intimidation, has become so great of recent years as to reach the jury box and almost effectually prevent the conviction of any person charged with stock stealing. As one evidence of this the records of the District Court in Johnson county for the five years last past, show that over 50 indictments have been found against different persons charged with the stealing of live stock, and that of this number there have been less than ten convictions. These acquittals have been so flagrant and so contrary to the evidence that the judges have deplored existing conditions and have declared it almost a useless effort and expense to try any person charged with the stealing of livestock.

These thieves have grown so bold and so open in their support and defense of stealing that they have notified persons who differ with them to leave the country, and have in many instances enforced their threats by acts of violence, and they further threaten to assassinate those who have fled if they return.

In March, 1892, these thieves, together with others whom they had intimidated, met together at Buffalo and organized and arranged for round-ups in violation of law and were endeavoring to execute the same when certain owners of live stock in that vicinity obtained from the United States Circuit Court for the District of Wyoming an injunction order restraining and enjoining the carrying on of these round-ups. The United States marshal and his deputies, who went to the vicinity to serve the order of injunction, were grossly mistreated and embarrassed in the service of the process of the court, and found it unsafe to remain there. One of the deputy marshals, George Wellman, a courageous and honest man, was foully assassinated without cause or provocation, on a public highroad in that county while going to Buffalo to receive instructions from the United States marshal relating to the service of his injunction order.

Your petitioners and others intending to enter upon and carry on the round-up arranged for by law, sent trusted and honest employees to attend to the same, and these men were threatened with violence by the thieves and were compelled to leave the county to avoid death or other violence to their persons. During the last two months the number of stock thieves in that vicinity has been greatly augmented by the arrival of other men of the same character from other parts of the country, and there now exists in that country an organized plan of driving the stockmen out, so that their property may become common property for the thieves; cattle are being wantonly and openly slaughtered in that section by thieves, some of the slaughtering being done for no other purpose whatsoever than to gratify malicious motives, and other slaughtering is being done to enable the thieves to market the beef and obtain money therefor. The ranches and homes of owners in that vicinity have many of them been plundered and the personal effects and furniture there stolen or destroyed, and the occupants of the ranches have been driven from the country by fear. Even women and children at these ranches have received these threats of violence, and have been compelled to seek places of safety. Letters in the United States mails have been opened by these thieves, and there exists a general and well-founded belief that letters and information cannot be safely confided to the United States mails in that vicinity, and in several instances persons have been warned against sending letters to their friends upon the outside (of the mailsack), and have been notified not to go to the postoffice either for the purpose of mailing letters or for the purpose of receiving mail therefrom.

No effort of any kind whatever on behalf of the civil authorities in that vicinity is being made to suppress this stealing, or any of the acts of violence and intimidation, and in many instances the civil authorities are, by reason of natural inclination or intimidation, working with the thieves and under their influence. The sheriff of Johnson county openly declares his enmity towards the owners of live stock. With his knowledge, and without any opposition whatever from him, the county is patrolled by large numbers of armed thieves who are permitted to go about heavily armed and prepared at any moment to execute their threat against those who are not in accord with them.

In conclusion, your petitioners represent unto your excellency that there exists in the district named an armed combination to prevent the administration of law and justice; that neither life nor property is in any respect safe, and does not and cannot receive protection at the hands of the civil authorities. The country named is in a feverish state of excitement and under a complete reign of terror, and both persons and property are wholly at the mercy of the outlaws and thieves who infest that section.

We, therefore, pray your excellency will place the district named under martial law, for the reason that it is the one remedy for the existing evils, and it is the only way of protecting the lives and property of the people there.

Respectfully submitted, (Signed) Trustees of PRATT & FERRIS CATTLE CO., By J. A. Pratt, Manager. CLAY & FOREST, HENRY A. BLAIR, WM. A. PAXTON, WINDSOR, KEMP & CO., E. S. ROUSE BOUGHTON, JOHN N. TISDALE, FRED G. HESSE, A. R. POWERS, HENRY G. HAY, MANHATTAN CATTLE COMPANY, By H. G. Hay, President. OGALLALA LAND & CATTLE COMPANY, By W. C. Irvine, Manager. CLARK & HUNTON, A. B. CLARKE & CO., CONRAD & CLARK, MURPHY CATTLE COMPANY, E. W. WHITCOMB, THE WESTERN UNION BEEF COMPANY, By Geo. W. Baxter, Manager. JAS. G. PRATT, BAY STATE LIVE STOCK COMPANY, By H. H. Robinson, Superintendent.

To the reader of these pages who has kept the run of events as they have been detailed, the above can only be viewed in the light of a tissue of false statements from beginning to end, and as a last dying effort to accomplish by strategy what the signers of this petition, or their agents, had failed to do in an open fight on the grassy plains of Northern Wyoming.

Up to the time of the filing of this libelous petition no act of violence had been perpetrated in Johnson county, or any other northern county, save by the cattlemen themselves, or their hired assassins. The threats, intimidation and murder were all on the side of the cattlemen. True, George Wellman had been killed, but the well-settled conviction then, and now, rested and rests in the minds of the public that this unfortunate young man was the victim, not of the settlers of Johnson county, but of the cattlemen themselves. That the murder of George Wellman was planned in Cheyenne and the brutal outrage executed on orders from the Capital City seems of easy demonstration to all fair-minded men.

What are the facts? For years the stockmen had dominated the north--its hills, valleys and plains were overrun with their lowing herds. As time wore on the hardy pioneer came to dispute with them the occupancy of the rich lands and to build homes where before was seen only the dashing cowboy and the long-horned steer. This was an innovation not to be tolerated. A few cattle were stolen--as is the case in all communities--but no act of violence was committed. Exasperated at the situation and realizing that no serious charges could be successfully preferred against the settlers--the series of cold-blooded murders heretofore mentioned in these pages was perpetrated at the hands of the cattle barons. Still no overt act was done by the settlers. Then the raid was undertaken for the purpose of terrorizing the country. This failed of its purpose, though 48 men crimsoned their hands with the blood of their fellow citizens. Still no blood stains were upon the hands of the settler. They rose up in their honor and their might to defend their homes and their lives against the swoop of the assassins, but they committed no crime.

Baffled at every turn, what more natural to a band of men who had done murder, arson and body burning, than to order the death of one of their trusted aiders if, by so doing, they believed that they could fasten the crime of assassination upon the innocent settler and use the circumstance as a lever to force the declaration of martial law in the country they were trying to conquer? With Wellman dead, and the crime of his murder laid upon the settler, it was believed that the governor could be induced to place Northern Wyoming virtually in the control of the then defeated cattlemen, through the agency of the marshals who would supersede the civil authorities in the event of martial law being proclaimed. With martial law in force in Johnson, Converse, Natrona and Weston counties, as was contemplated by the above recorded petitioners, the defeat at TA ranch would be turned into a great victory. To accomplish this by the loss of one of their friends would be, from their standpoint, gaining much for a little. They would not stop to consider the matter in the light of the infamy that should attach to an act of such base treachery, for would it not save many of their own lives by accomplishing what it would require another raid into the county to as successfully do? And with the aroused feeling everywhere prevalent was it not almost a certainty that some one of the faithful would be called upon to pay the final debt of nature? The chain of circumstances is very damaging to the professed innocence of the cattlemen’s ring.

Exactly what impression this document had upon the mind of the acting governor will probably never be known to the public. Neither will it be known just what action he took in the premises, unless a thorough and far-reaching investigation is made by the Legislature. But the suspicion is strong in the minds of most well-informed persons that the subject matter was laid before our United States senators and the president, with a request that action be taken by the general government. This impression prevails by reason of the subsequent action of the secretary of war in quartering soldiers for months in two of the northern counties, a thing unknown before in the history of the country during a time of peace, and the issuing of a proclamation by President Harrison calling upon the citizens of Wyoming to lay down their arms and repair to their homes, or by implication, that martial law would be declared within three days of that official notice. This being done at a time when the invaders were in the hands of the military at Fort Russell, and when no armed body of men was to be found anywhere in the state, save the soldiers at the two government posts, makes it difficult of explanation except on the theory that a copy of the above quoted petition, setting up a false condition, had been presented to the president, and his interposition specially urged, either by the governor or the United States senators at that time representing the state in Congress.

It is understood that the main object of Major Walcott’s parole trip was to secure senatorial influence in urging the president to declare martial law, and perhaps Senator Manderson and some others joined the Wyoming senators in this outrageous demand.

The first fruits of the cry for martial law are made manifest in the following telegram:

“Washington, June 6, 1892.

“Six troops of cavalry from Fort Robinson, Nebraska, are ordered to march to Powder River, Wyoming. The two troops of cavalry at Fort McKinney are directed to join them. Six troops of cavalry from Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, are ordered to march into Wyoming, going into camp at a point between old Fort Fetterman and old Fort Casper.”

These cavalry forces moved as directed, and remained stationed in the sagebrush all summer, apparently as a forerunner of martial law. Common rumor had it that the regulators believed the presence of the troops would so incense the settlers that some overt acts would be committed and such serious trouble follow as to make martial law necessary, or at least excusable. The northern press “caught on” to this idea, and strongly urged upon the people to bear patiently this humiliation and give no cause for further action by the government. Such advice was hardly necessary, but there was no disturbance at the camp on the Platt river.

At the Powder river camp there was trouble, but it was so plainly the result of viciousness on the part of the soldiers that no action looking toward martial law could be taken by the authorities. Two of the colored troops got into a row with a depraved white man over a lewd woman at a bagnio in the village of Suggs, a mile from the camp. The night following, between 10 and 11 o’clock, a squad of 44 colored soldiers marched into the town and opened fire on a saloon where a number of men were assembled, playing cards and drinking. The attack was unprovoked and unexpected. The citizens, however, rushed for their guns and pistols, and charged the black soldiers, driving them out of town, killing one and wounding five. It was claimed that some of the friends of the white caps were in the soldiers’ camp at the time, and the responsibility was charged to them. No further trouble occurred.

As confirmatory of the impressions that the sending of troops into the state was the result of the misrepresentations of the interested stockmen, and that they hoped it would turn out to be a move in their favor, the following statement of an officer stationed at Omaha, and made to an agent of the Associated Press reporter on June 11, 1892, may be quoted, as follows:

“It is believed by the military authorities that the presence of a large body of troops in the cattle districts will have a quieting effect, and in case it becomes necessary to take active steps to quell another outbreak, the troops will be close to the scene of the disturbance. The department is convinced that there are a number of thieves in that region who are agitating this bitterness and are at the head of this lawlessness that has terrorized portions of the state. These thieves will be watched very closely, and about the first break they make they will be taken in by the powerful arm of Uncle Sam.

“One of the officers at the headquarters was asked today if he thought the State of Wyoming would be placed under martial law, and he replied that he did not think it would be necessary to adopt that measure. ‘There is one thing you may depend upon, however,’ he said, ‘the government is not going to put up with the lawlessness out there any longer. That business has got to come to an end, and my opinion is that if you watch matters closely you will see an emigration from Wyoming of some of the parties who have been busy stirring up the trouble.’”

The last remark quoted above has proven true--some of the stockmen who were “busy stirring up the trouble” have “emigrated,” and others are likely to follow suit, but the settlers who took up arms to defend their homes remain, and no hired assassins can drive them out.

The soldier quartering scheme failing to produce the desired effect, some occult influence was brought to bear on President Harrison, and he issued the following:

Proclamation

“Whereas, By reasons of unlawful obstructions and assemblages of persons it has become impracticable, in my judgment, to enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the laws of the United States within the state and district of Wyoming, the United States marshal, after repeated efforts, being unable by his ordinary deputies, or by any civil posse which he is able to obtain, to execute the process of the United States courts;

“Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Benjamin Harrison, president of the United States, do hereby command all persons engaged in such resistance to the laws and the process of the courts of the United States, to cease such opposition and resistance and to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes on or before Wednesday, the 3rd day of August next.

“In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington this 30th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two, and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and seventeenth.

(Seal) “BENJAMIN HARRISON.

“By the President: “JOHN W. FOSTER, Secretary of State.”

No more infamous document ever issued from official pen. No greater outrage was ever perpetrated upon a long-suffering people than is here ruthlessly thrust upon all of Wyoming’s citizens. The statements made in the “whereas” were absolutely false in every line. They were lies, pure and simple. On the day that the text of this insult reached Cheyenne a prominent citizen approached Judge Riner, of the United States Court, and asked him what the proclamation meant. His reply was that he knew absolutely nothing about it. That he was as much surprised as any other citizen--that there were no processes issued from his court but what had been served in the regular way--no obstructions having been met with by the marshals that had come to his knowledge. Every person then living in the state knew that there was no resistance to law within our borders, and that there was no body of men collected anywhere to whom an order to “disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes” could possibly be addressed.

How came it, then, that the president of this great country should descend to the level of a blackmailer, and by an official act proclaim to the world that the good people of an entire state were engaged in resisting the law?

There is but one explanation--the statements in the petition to Acting Governor Barber had been presented to him as the truth, and he had been deceived by senatorial representatives into believing them. It was the influence of the old Cheyenne cattlemen’s ring permeating official ranks from the policeman on his beat up through all the gradations to the White House at Washington. It is said that our senators denied any knowledge of this proclamation until it appeared. This may be true, but the public is slow to accept it as a truth. How did the president gain the information upon which to base his statements? Certainly, he would not accept such grave charges as true without an investigation. Should he investigate, where would he begin? Manifestly with the senators from the state implicated. Were the statements filed by the governor, no sane man, sitting in the presidential chair, would act on them without consultation, when there were two senators to whom he could apply for confirmation or denial of the charges. There is no escape from a division of the responsibility of the president’s defamatory proclamation between the acting governor and the two senators representing Wyoming at that time, and the public will so hold.