Show TIlE WYOMING COWBOYS An interesting Kcport by thc Secretary Secre-tary of the Territorial Ceii vciitiou Special to the DEMOCRAT CHEYENNE April 7The Wyoming Stockmens Convention which met in the Opera House here yesterday was largely attended The report of the Sec rotary Thomas C Sturgis was read and the views embodied in the report adopted as representing the predominating sentiment senti-ment of the association It reviewed timework time-work of the association during the twelve years of its existence and spoke of its remarkable growth in numbers and influence in-fluence Beginning in April 1873 with ten members representing a total of 20 000 head of cattle valued at 350000 it had today swelled its membership forty fold representing an ownership of 2000 000 head of cattle and a valuation including includ-ing horses plant and real estate of 100 000000 The association had prepared a brand law which protects a record of previous ownership and secured the enactment i en-actment of the first sanitary law for the protection against disease which was passed west of the Alleghanies excepting only those of the State of Illinois The report then touches upon the more recent labors of the association and speaks the investigation as to the existence of the Texas fever In regard to this question Secretary Sturgis and a special committee which thoroughly investigated the subject declare First That Texas cattle brought from the southern part of Texas are dangerous to our cattle for about sixty days from the time said Southern Texans leave their native ranges Any method of bringing them which places them on our ranges in less than that time should be discouraged and cattle so brought should be refused admittance Second That the same cattle can be brought among our stock after said sixty days have elapsed with entire safety to us This report speaking of pleuropneu monia says Their investigations outside out-side of statements of government officials leave no doubt it has this year appeared in four prominent western States all further west than any previous development develop-ment viz in Ohio Illinois Kentucky and Missouri The disease today is confined con-fined within narrower boundaries and each known avenue for its extension is guarded but the disease is tenacious slow and insiduous and the committee is unanimous in the opinion that reasonable detention in quarantine before entering AVyoming should be at once imposed on all stock coming from the east Regarding the project of the national trail the report says The Wyoming Association can take no other position than they would upon the proposition to expend national funds for the advancement advance-ment of any special industry in any other State of the Union The report speaks of the important question of grazing lands as follows Among the new questions arising one imperatively demands attention namely he use of government lands for grazing The eastern public who gladly hailed our production of cheap beef ten years ago vnd welcomed us to the use of barren plateau where we risked our lives daily against the Indians has now no milder erms for us than Bullock Barons and Aristocrats of the Plains every possible misrepresentation is made in public prints though we have built up the only ndustry practicable on these arid and sandy prairies and created millions of axable property Congress is daily urged to crusade against us as though we were a class whose business was a byword and i reproach and whose destruction would Xi a commendable act Two principal crimes laid at our door are That we obstruct ob-struct and prevent by force and violence the settlement of these lands by the farmer farm-er that we pay nothing for the use of ands over which our herds graze It is needless to you and useless to say to deaf ears that at least about 80 percent per-cent of these lands it is carefully estimated estimat-ed can never by any system producegrain that 10 per cent is mountain and canyon that the other 10 per cent the settler is daily entering without hindrance We critics ire weary of asking our eastern how we can reimburse the government when that government will neither sell threatened wIth nor lease but as we are hasty and iOnorant legislation on every session is it not wise to place this associa made tion on record as denying charges against us and stating in general terms adjustment of our desire for an equitable the question We do not wish to precipitate precipi-tate the matter but such an expression would be a powerful weapon in the hands in when called on of our friends Congress to speak in our behalf The committee hope that such resolutions will be adopted |