To the old cattlemen the above list of names will have a familiar sound. Again I quote from the minutes the names of the Round-up Captains as follows:

John N. Simpson and Theo. Roosevelt, Little Missouri District.

F. C. Robertson and J. J. Thompson, Rosebud and West Side Yellow

stone.

Wm. Catant, Upper Tongue River.

Capt. Howes, East Side of Tongue River & Pumpkin Creek.
Mr. Hastings, Upper Powder River.

E. H. Johnston, Little Powder River.
Henry Tulser, Lower Powder River.
Jno. M. Holt, Mizpah District.

S. F. B. Biddle, Powder River.

C. H. Loud, East Side Tongue River and Pumpkin Creek.
Flood & Chapman, O'Fallon District.

P. Wibaux, D. C. Roe and Geo. Towers, District No. 7.

The meeting of April, 1887, was also well attended, although the hard winter just closed put a damper on everyone. Few at that meeting had realized the truth or size of terrific losses. Secretary Harrison in his annual report had attacked the newly formed Interstate Commerce Commission. For this Mr. Roosevelt would not stand and after a good deal of discussion the paragraph was bracketed with the express provision that the Association did not commit itself on the subject. Early in his career our famous ExPresident had his ear to the ground politically. It was a scrappy sort of a meeting, one of the episodes being a rather cowardly attack by John Holt on Dr. Ames at the end of a meeting, the reasons never developing. At any rate Holt hit his victim unawares and no sportsman can forgive that.

At the end of that meeting Mr. Joseph Scott was elected President and held the position for many years. He did good work in many ways, but as said above was unfortunate in some of his selections. But this tribute we must pay to his

memory that he was honest, unselfish in his efforts to help his neighbors along and when he died, a comparatively young man, his loss was mourned by many, not the least by the writer.

The Association had always been strong in personality and in the many meetings I have attended since these old days there was always a snap about them. Of late years it has been ably managed, much being due to the present President R. P. Heren and D. W. Raymond, the able Secretary. How could it be otherwise with men deeply interested like Conrad Kohrs, T. C. Power, John T. Murphy, Charles Anceney, Granville Stuart, Joe Scott, Joe Rosenbaum, a fearless financier after the killing winter of 1886-87, and many others too numerous to mention.

The following figures tell their own story:

Table Showing the Total Export of Cattle by Years,
Beginning in 1885, and Up to Date.

These figures run into millions but they are small when we think what Montana can produce in the years to come. With her wealth of water and magnificent grazing areas no man can prophesy as to the future.

I

CHAPTER XL

Written in October, 1923

N September, 1920, a little over three years ago, I addressed the Wyoming bankers at Casper, Wyo., upon the subject, "The Live Stock Industry: Where Are We At?"

We were then at the beginning of our momentous troubles. Some people told me I had courage to present the subject in such bald colors. Since then the combat has thickened. What seemed like flea-bites then are open sores today. Some words uttered then were indeed prophetic, but now we know that scarcely half the truth was told. Even today we cannot fully comprehend the tragedies that have overshadowed, in many cases overwhelmed, our western cattle business. A timely rise in wool and mutton saved the day for sheep, but even there fatalities are recorded.

When the world-war opened the first days of August, 1914, our live stock industries were in a healthy state. We had a good supply of cattle, a declining census in sheep, and an average number of hogs. During the war, prices jumped to unprecedented heights. Those conditions we need not discuss, except to say that it is astonishing how little our stockmen had to show after this great outburst of seeming prosperity. High prices led on to expansion, extravagance, real estate speculation and a wild orgy of spending and "blue sky" promotions. Labor climbed the ladder rapidly.

For a year or more after the close of the war, the merry game went on. Then came the avalanche. It came from two great causes, assisted by smaller ones incidental to any great calamity. First, we had in the far West a drouth in the summer of 1919, followed by a fierce winter of unprecedented length. Second, a sudden, unexpected deflation in prices of all live stock products. There were other contributing causes, such as the sharp contraction of credit

which followed the lowering of values. Bankers worried, called loans, and the machinery of live stock credit was seriously clogged. The Federal Reserve Bank, much to its credit, relieved this situation, else we should have had a panic in the Southwest, West and Northwest. Worse than that, we had just passed through a great era of frenzied finance, promoted by the packers and their allied interests. For many years "they came, they saw, they conquered." It began first with P. D. Armour, and although that gentleman made more or less of a failure in his first attempt, his example was followed till every big packer, his associate banks, his imitators in the search for wealth, promoted loan companies that sold their securities freely in every part of the country. The packers said they were in this business to help the producer, and as an aftermath, the consumer. If that was the first idea it was shortlived and became a race whose ultimate goal was greed, glory and power.

At this juncture I am reminded of a story which I cannot refrain from reciting. Many years ago P. D. Armour with George Pullman became heavily interested in the Diamond Match Co., and when that company's affairs were most seriously involved Armour went one day to Pullman's office, and greeted him with, "Well, George, if you had stuck to bedmaking and I had stuck to pig-sticking we would not now be in this mess.'

The West was ransacked by solicitors hunting for loans, the business ran away from the principals, and the understrapper pulled an oar in the boat. Millions of dollars went recklessly into those loans, and then came a full stop—consternation, recrimination and attempted liquidation. The latter is steadily going on. Today the packer hires a collector instead of an investor. The latter was a warm-hearted, affectionate gentleman, very plausible in his ways, but the former is stern, hard-hearted, a sphinx in his methods. Many of the concerns handled have had to show their actual condition, but the great bulk will be liquidated and the outside world will know nothing about it.

Millions were loaned where thousands would have been ample. In other words, very ordinary people were elevated to a high financial plane, for no other reason than that they had live stock to offer as collateral. Further, the inspection methods were poor. On range cattle loans the inspection was of little use. You could not count the stock running on the open range, and every herd was overestimated by the owner, the shortage running 35 to 40 per cent, which exhausted the margin of security in your advance. While names of parties or corporations are not mentioned, the writer makes these statements from practical experience and a good many sad results.

It is estimated that the losses incurred in this class of business will aggregate about $50,000,000. As the writer's firm contributed a small percentage of this amount and has had a wide experience in this business, that sum, while a guess, may be taken as approximately correct. But it is not the losses made by the packer companies or their allied interests and the city bankers and others who went into this business (country banks not included in the foregoing estimate) that is the most serious side of this question. It is the terrible loss made by the borrowers and the moral effect it has naturally had upon local sentiment. That is a depressing influence, the extent of which may not be put in figures. The men who loaned the money may be able to count the bill of costs in dollars and cents. The present damage to the affected regions it is difficult to estimate. That is an invisible liability that cannot be approximated.

The year 1920 developed a serious condition. Prices at the central markets had declined below the cost of production. Stock cattle and sheep could not be sold. Feeders of all classes of stock had made heavy losses, although sheepmen eventually saw daylight. The great losses of the sheep feeder of the winter and spring of 1921 were recovered in 1922. Wool went up in price, and lambs made high figures. A better feeling prevailed, and, while we have not the liquidation expected from these high prices, still it is safe to say our