The implication was clear: If they got rid of the federal government, they’d have control over their land and lives again.
This version of history bears little resemblance to the actual past. Before the federal agencies came to eastern Oregon, large ranching operations from California had monopolized hundreds of thousands of acres of rangeland. Irrigation developers controlled water, cattle barons controlled the grass, and settlers were essentially locked out. Tensions were high.
During the 1890s, a populist, anti-monopolist rhetoric emerged among settlers and news editors. The local newspaper deplored the fact that the great Western ranges were passing into “the hands of a few big cattle or sheep companies,” and predicted that soon “an aristocracy of range lords and cattle kings would rule our mountains and plains.” In 1897, Peter French, the cattle baron who controlled the largest ranching empire in America, along the Blitzen River, was murdered by an angry homesteader. Arson, violence and grinding poverty flourished. http://app.nytimes.com/
This version of history bears little resemblance to the actual past. Before the federal agencies came to eastern Oregon, large ranching operations from California had monopolized hundreds of thousands of acres of rangeland. Irrigation developers controlled water, cattle barons controlled the grass, and settlers were essentially locked out. Tensions were high.
During the 1890s, a populist, anti-monopolist rhetoric emerged among settlers and news editors. The local newspaper deplored the fact that the great Western ranges were passing into “the hands of a few big cattle or sheep companies,” and predicted that soon “an aristocracy of range lords and cattle kings would rule our mountains and plains.” In 1897, Peter French, the cattle baron who controlled the largest ranching empire in America, along the Blitzen River, was murdered by an angry homesteader. Arson, violence and grinding poverty flourished. http://app.nytimes.com/
