Biography; Frontier and pioneer life -- Dakota Territory; Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
Sewall, being a strong individualist, was more than dubious concerning
the practicality of the cooeperative round-up. The cowmen were
passionately devoted to the idea of the open range; to believe in
fences was treason; but it was in fences that Bill Sewall believed.
I don't like so free a country [he wrote]. Whare one man has
as good a right as another nobody really has any right, so
when feed gets scarce in one place they drive their cattle
whare it is good without regard to whose range they eat out.
I am satisfied that by the time we are ready to leave grass
will be pretty scarce here.
I think the Cattle business has seen its best days and I
gave my opinion to Mr. R. last fall. I hope he may not lose
but I think he stands a chance. Shall do all we can to
prevent it, but it is such a mixed business. One or two
can't do much. It is the most like driving on the Lake when
you are mixed with everybody. I don't like it and never did.
I want to controle and manage my own affairs and have a
right to what I have, but here as on the Lake it is all
common. One has as much right as another.
Roosevelt remained with the round-up until it disbanded not far from
Elkhorn Bottom. Then, on June 21st, he went East, accompanied by
Wilmot Dow, who was going home to get married and bring Sewall's wife
back with him when he brought back his own.
Two reporters intercepted Roosevelt as he passed through St. Paul the
day after his departure from Medora, and have left an attractive
picture of the politician-turned-cowboy.
Rugged, bronzed, and in the prime of health [wrote the
representative of the _Pioneer Press_], Theodore Roosevelt
passed through St. Paul yesterday, returning from his Dakota
ranch to New York and civilization. There was very little of
the whilom dude in his rough and easy costume, with a large
handkerchief tied loosely about his neck; but the eyeglasses
and the flashing eyes behind them, the pleasant smile and
the hearty grasp of hand remained. There was the same
eagerness to hear from the world of politics, and the same
frank willingness to answer all questions propounded. The
slow, exasperating drawl and the unique accent that the New
Yorker feels he must use when visiting a less blessed
portion of civilization have disappeared, and in their place
is a nervous, energetic manner of talking with the flat
accent of the West. Roosevelt is changed from the New York
club man to the thorough Westerner, but the change is only
in surface indications, and he is the same thoroughly good
fellow he has always been.
The reporter of the _Dispatch_ caught him in the lobby of the
Merchant's Hotel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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