ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS by Hermann Hagedorn (inspirational books for students .txt) 📕

[Illustration: A. T. Packard.]

[Illustration: Office of the "Bad Lands Cowboy".]

Packard, as editor of the Bad Lands Cowboy, had, in a manner entirely out of proportion to his personal force, or the personal force that any other man except the most notable might have brought to bear, been a civilizing influence from the beginning. The train that brought his presses from the East brought civilization with it, a somewhat shy and wraithlike civilization, but yet a thing made in the image and containing in itself the germ of that spirit which is the antithesis of barbarism, based on force, being itself the visible expression of the potency of ideas. The Bad Lands Cowboy brought the first tenuous foreshadowing of democratic government to the banks of the Little Missouri, inasmuch as it was an organ which could mould public opinion and through which public opinion might find articulation. It was thus that a youngster, not a year out of college, became, in a sense, the first representative of the American idea in the Marquis de Mores's feudal appanage.

Packard was extraordinarily well fitted not only to be a frontier editor, but to be a frontier editor in Medora. His college education gave him a point of contact with the Marquis which most of the other citizens of the Bad Lands lacked; his independence of spirit, on the other hand, kept him from becoming the Frenchman's tool. He was altogether fearless, he was a crack shot and a good rider, and he was not without effectiveness with his fists. But he was also tactful and tolerant; and he shared, and the cowboys knew he shared, their love of the open country and the untrammeled ways of the frontier. Besides, he had a sense of humor, which in Medora in the spring of 1884, was better than great riches.

The Cowboy was Packard and Packard was the Cowboy. He printed what he pleased, dictating his editorials, as it were, "to the machine," he himself being the machine translating ideas into type as they came. His personal responsibility was absolute. There was no one behind whom he could hide. If any one objected to any statement in Medora's weekly newspaper, he knew whom to reproach. "Every printed word," said Packard, a long time after, "bore my brand. There were no mavericks in the Bad Lands Cowboy articles. There was no libel law; no law of any kind except six-shooter rights. And I was the only man who never carried a six-shooter."

To a courageous man, editing a frontier paper was an adventure which had thrills which editors in civilized communities never knew. Packard spoke his mind freely. Medora gasped a little. Packard expressed his belief that a drunken man who kills, or commits any other crime, should be punished for the crime and also for getting drunk, and then there was trouble; for the theory of the frontier was that a man who was drunk was not responsible for what he did, and accidents which happened while he was in that condition, though unfortunate, were to be classed, not with crimes, but with tornadoes and hailstorms and thunder bolts, rather as "acts of God." The general expression of the editor's opposition to this amiable theory brought only rumblings, but the specific applications brought indignant citizens with six-shooters. Packard had occasion to note the merits as a lethal weapon of the iron "side-stick" with which he locked his type forms. It revealed itself as more potent than a six-shooter, and a carving-knife was not in a class with it; as he proved to the satisfaction of all concerned when a drunken butcher, who attempted to cut a Chinaman into fragments, came to the Cowboy office, "to forestall adverse comment in the next issue."

Packard was amused to note how much his ability to defend himself simplified the problem of moulding public opinion in Medora.

The law-abiding ranchmen along the Little Missouri, who found a spokesman in the editor of the Cowboy, recognized that what the Bad Lands needed was government, government with a club if possible, but in any event something from which a club could be developed. But the elements of disorder, which had been repulsed when they had suggested the organization of Billings County a year previous, now vigorously resisted organization when the impetus came from the men who had blocked their efforts. But the Cowboy fought valiantly, and the Dickinson Press in its own way did what it could to help.

Medora is clamoring for a county organization in Billings County [the editor reported.] We hope they will get it. If there is any place along the line that needs a criminal court and a jail it is Medora. Four-fifths of the business before our justice of the peace comes from Billings County.

A week later, the Press reported that the county was about to be organized and that John C. Fisher and A. T. Packard were to be two out of the three county commissioners. Then something happened. What it was is shrouded in mystery. Possibly the Marquis, who had never been acquitted by a jury of the killing of Riley Luffsey, decided at the last minute that, in case the indictment, which was hovering over him like an evil bird, should suddenly plunge and strike, he would stand a better chance away from Medora than in it. A word from him to Maunders and from Maunders to his "gang" would unquestionably have served to bring about the organization of the county; a word spoken against the move would also have served effectually to block it. There was, however, a certain opposition to the movement for organization on the part of the most sober elements of the population. Some of the older ranchmen suggested to Packard and to Fisher that they count noses. They did so, and the result was not encouraging. Doubtless they might organize the county, but the control of it would pass into the hands of the crooked. Whatever causes lay behind the sudden evaporation of the project, the fact stands that for the time being the Bad Lands remained under the easy-going despotism of the Marquis de Mores and his prime minister, Jake Maunders, unhampered and unillumined by the impertinences of democracy.

The Dickinson Press had truth on its side when it uttered its wail that Medora needed housing facilities for the unruly. Medora had never had a jail. Little Missouri had had an eight by ten shack which one man, who knew some history, christened "the Bastile," and which was used as a sort of convalescent hospital for men who were too drunk to distinguish between their friends and other citizens when they started shooting. But a sudden disaster had overtaken the Bastile one day when a man called Black Jack had come into Little Missouri on a wrecking train. He had a reputation that extended from Mandan to Miles City for his ability to carry untold quantities of whiskey without showing signs of intoxication; but Little Missouri proved his undoing. The "jag" he developed was something phenomenal, and he was finally locked up in the Bastile by common consent. The train crew, looking for Black Jack at three in the morning, located him after much searching. But the Bastile had been built by the soldiers and resisted their efforts to break in. Thereupon they threw a line about the shack and with the engine hauled it to the side of a flatcar attached to the train. Then with a derrick they hoisted Little Missouri's only depository for the helpless inebriate on the flatcar and departed westward. At their leisure they chopped Black Jack out of his confinement. They dumped the Bastile over the embankment somewhere a mile west of town.

The collapse of the efforts of the champions of order to organize the county left the problem of dealing with the lawlessness that was rampant, as before, entirely to the impulse of outraged individuals. There was no court, no officer of the law. Each man was a law unto himself, and settled his own quarrels. The wonder, under such circumstances, is not that there was so much bloodshed, but that there was so little. There was, after all, virtue in the anarchy of the frontier. Personal responsibility was a powerful curb-bit.

In the Bad Lands, in June, 1884, there was a solid minority of law-abiding citizens who could be depended on in any crisis. There was a larger number who could be expected as a rule to stand with the angels, but who had friendly dealings with the outlaws and were open to suspicion. Then there was the indeterminate and increasing number of men whose sources of revenue were secret, who toiled not, but were known to make sudden journeys from which they returned with fat "rolls" in their pockets. It was to curb this sinister third group that Packard had attempted to organize the county. Failing in that project, he issued a call for a "mass meeting."

The meeting was duly held, and, if it resembled the conference of a committee more than a popular uprising, that was due mainly to the fact that a careful census taken by the editor of the Cowboy revealed that in the whole of Billings County, which included in its limits at that time a territory the size of Massachusetts, there lived exactly one hundred and twenty-two males and twenty-seven females. There was a certain hesitancy on the part even of the law-abiding to assert too loudly their opposition to the light-triggered elements which were "frisking" their horses and cattle. The "mass meeting" voted, in general, that order was preferable to disorder and adjourned, after unanimously electing Packard chief of police (with no police to be chief of) and the Marquis de Mores head of the fire department (which did not exist).

"I have always felt there was something I did not know back of that meeting," said Packard afterward. "I think Roosevelt started it, as he and I were agreed the smaller ranches were losing enough cattle and horses to make the difference between profit and loss. It was a constant topic of conversation among the recognized law-and-order men and all of us agreed the thieves must be checked. I don't even remember how the decision came about to hold the meeting. It was decided to hold it, however, and I gave the notice wide publicity in the Bad Lands Cowboy. I was never more surprised than when Merrifield nominated me for chief of police. Merrifield was a partner with Roosevelt and the Ferris boys in the Chimney Butte Ranch and I have always thought he and Roosevelt had agreed beforehand to nominate me."

Packard took up his duties, somewhat vague in his mind concerning what was expected of him. There was no organization behind him, no executive committee to give him instructions. With a large liberality, characteristic of the frontier, the "mass meeting" had left to his own discretion the demarcation of his "authority" and the manner of its assertion. His "authority," in fact, was a gigantic bluff, but he was not one to let so immaterial a detail weaken his nerve.

The fire department died stillborn; but the police force promptly asserted itself. Packard had decided to "work on the transients" first, for he could persuade them, better than he could the residents, that he had an organization behind him, with masks and a rope. From the start he made it a point not to mix openly in any "altercation," where he could avoid it, for the simple reason that the