Chapter XV

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?”