Cattle

Quite in line with this story is a remark made to me by Jim Kennicott, my cattle foreman on White River in Western Colorado.

We arrived with a herd of nearly 800 cattle late in the Fall, too late to do anything but buy some hay for emergencies. I bought all available and was getting ready to leave for Denver, a trip of about 400 miles through two ranges of mountains, when it occurred to me that I should give Jim some specific instructions about feeding the hay.

“Now, Jim, you will have some bad storms this winter and when you do, drive in the cattle you can and feed them until the storm is over.”

Jim said, ‘Don’t you know, J.W., you should not do that and could not do it with safety?”

I said, “What do you mean? What do you suppose I bought this hay for?”

He said, “I am a practical cattle man and I will tell you what you bought it for. If it storms, we will ride the range and bring in any animal we think needs it and we will feed it here but don’t you know, J.W. what would happen if we rounded up the herd and began feeding them here? They would never go out to graze again, they would stand with their heads toward the haystack and bawl their heads off every day – there would be no stopping them and unless we fed them they would starve, and there isn’t enough hay to feed them all winter.”

The remarkable thing about this story is that in the long life I have lived since then, I have known numerous individuals who have stood outside and bawled their heads off – and I have let them stand there. In doing so I have performed my duty as I see it, to those who, at the present time, under the New Deal, get on the dole and stay there and bawl.