Talk:Johnson County War

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[edit] Aftermath Section

I took this section out because I find it very confusing and don't know if it really has much to do with the JCW:


From 1885 to 1909, fifteen supposed rustlers were killed by mobs. Starting in 1892, ranchers began to hire individual paid assassins. The killers, and the ranchers who hired them, were shielded by sympathetic elected officials, and coroners' juries tended to praise the killers and dwell on the supposed evil reputations of the victims. Some newspapers followed this lead, but for example the Cheyenne Sun wrote concerning the 1885 murder of Si Partridge, "How far lynch law may be given the support of public opinion is going to be a question for the western country to determine some day" [1] . After the turn of the century, public tolerance for the violence decreased. The end of the violence was enforced by public disgust at the 1909 Spring Creek Raid, in which three sheep workers were killed by fifteen masked men [2]

For instance, Fifteen supposed rustlers were killed where? Johnson County? Wyoming? The West? Furthermore, This over a 14 year period, which the JCW took place right in the middle. The quotes about Si Partridge took place 7 years before JWC, and the Spring Creek Raid 16 years after.

It is interesting information -- but it really needs to be written differently or broken up into different places. What do you think? Ok! 17:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Not quite finished yet. Anyone is welcome to finish, but take care you use historical material not the latest movie which showed on the Hallmark channel and is not that historically accurate. User:Fredbauder Aug 25, 2002

  • I added a "POV" box to the page. Although most of it seems to be a straightforward historical narrative, the last few paragraphs are not a balanced presentation of facts. Also, I found the concluding section confusing; why did Harrison intervene? Who was supporting the "invaders" and who was supporting the "rustlers"? Why did Wyoming "go Democratic" after this incident? It would be great if someone who understands the situation better than I do could clean up the article. RussBlau 13:17, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
    The answers are in the article: because the Governor asked for it, and because justice was not served. I've visited the museum in Kaycee, Wyoming and that's pretty much what they said, so I'm removing the banner. Gazpacho 06:32, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, maybe it's just me, but I'm not getting it. Sometimes when you know a lot about a subject it is hard to explain it to people who don't have the same base of knowledge. I don't doubt that what you've got is accurate, it just is hard to follow how the different sides of the conflict shook out. RussBlau 23:33, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
    Consider that law enforcement in a frontier area like Johnson County was limited, so both the settlers and the proprietors had a lot of flexibility on what they could get away with. The settlers got away with rebranding the proprietors' cattle, and the proprietors got away with making themselves judge and executioner on accusations of rustling. The cause of the war was that the settlers and proprietors had developed opposing views of the law and nobody tried to reconcile them.

    Hernando de Soto (economist) has written a lot about how property rights develop when the state isn't involved, including squatter's rights and private enforcement associations, and the JC War saw both of those at play. You can read an interview with him here and another one here Gazpacho 07:54, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Political stuff

Does anyone have any source to back up the statement that the state went Democratic, and for how long? Pfeifer talks about the Republican local government being in the pockets of the big ranchers for a long time after 1892, so did the Democrats only come to power at the state level??--Bcrowell 3 July 2005 01:16 (UTC)

[edit] The Banditti of the Plains

I've edited this section to make it clear that it's a nonfiction book, written by an eyewitness. I've deleted the claim that it helped to make the war famous, since it seems to be logically inconsistent with the fact that the book was suppressed. I've changed the word "censored" to "suppressed," since that's how it's depicted at [1]. AFAIK, only pornography has ever really been censored by government in the U.S., not political tracts; I assume that the book was suppressed via economic means or the threat of a civil suit or something?? More clarification of how it was suppressed would be helpful.--Bcrowell 14:06, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Tisdale Divide

I notice there is no reference to the Tisdale Divide or the murder of John A. Tisdale. I remember driving by an old state sign on the Old Highway between Kaycee and Buffalo that references his murder as being one of the things that precipitated the War. The only reference I can find is pasted below. http://www.ultimatewyoming.com/sectionpages/sec3/extras/tisdaledivide.html

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:The Virginian.jpg

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BetacommandBot 03:34, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WSGA and Johnson County

It is interesting to note that Johnson County never joined the Wyoming Stock Growers Association after the JCW. That is, until sometime in 2007, more than 100 years after the US Army had to rescue the hired thugs from Texas.

Resentments last a long time here in the west! We just haven't been around as a society for the last 1,000 years as the societies in the Middle East have.

Read about it in the Casper Star Tribune. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BenjaminAdams (talk • contribs) 01:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)