Senator Vest Champion Of The Dog

98 V533f

Keep Your Card in This Pocket

Books will bo issued only on presentation
of proper library cardy,

unless labeled otherwise, books may ^be
retained foKfw weeks, Borrowers finding
books marked, defaced or mutilated are ex-
pected to report $arae at library desk; other-
wise the last borrower will be held responsible
for all imp-erfectioas discovered,
, TEe end k>ld*r k responsible for all books
'dittft on hU card.

' for o^er-du books 2e a % pto'

of rtsideace

tost i*di arid
) b0 vtjporm, promptly*

PUBLIC TORY

Kansas City, Ho.

! KANSAS CITY, MO PUBLIC LIBRARY

MAY '.

STACKS REF 92 V583f

French, Edwin Mai com
Chase. 187O-

SENATOR VEST

CHAMPION OF THE DOG

BY

EDWIN M. C. FRENCH

ILLUSTRATED

MEADOR PUBLISHING COMPANY

27 Beach Street
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY EDWARD K. MEADOR

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE MEADOK PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.

Dedicated to

the millions of dog-lovers the
country over, and to those in-
terested in the great outdoors

PREFACE

This volume is not in any sense to be construed
as an extended biography of the late Senator
George Graham Vest, but touches briefly on some
parts of his career, and brings out in detail the
circumstances of the trial of the now famous
Missouri dog case which more and more is caus-
ing a thrill among the dog-lovers in this country,
and furthermore to explain with some detail the
splendid work accomplished by Senator Vest in
the establishment of the Yellowstone National
Park.

Senator Vest's love of dog and nature stands
out prominently.

The author desires to express his thanks to the
Honorable Sam A. Baker, Governor of Missouri,
George G. Vest, son of the late Senator, and
others whose courtesy assisted in securing data
for the work.

1929 E. M. C. F.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I Busy Life of Senator Vest 9

II The Story of "Old Drum" and the

Famous Speech 27

III Senator Vest and the Yellowstone

National Park 47

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Late Senator Vest FRONTISPIECE

Picture of the Late Colonel Blodgett. . . . opp. 20

SENATOR VEST, CHAMPION
OF THE DOG

CHAPTER I
BUSY LIFE OF SENATOR VEST

Time has not lessened in the slightest degree
the force of the splendid tribute to the dog at
Warrensburg, Missouri, fifty-nine years ago by
the late Senator Vest of Missouri. Rather, it has
added to its impressiveness and pathos immeasur-
ably. Research into the life work of the Senator
discloses many unusual incidents, incidents which
illustrate the energy and resourcefulness of this
colorful figure.

Mr. Coolidge in his now famous "I do not
choose" used no new phrase to express his feel-
ings about his political future. Senator Vest,
forty-three years ago, in a great discussion as to
the advisability of the President of the United
States naming a commission to investigate the
liquor traffic, declared himself in this language.

"I do not choose to be put in the attitude of
advocating intemperance, and I do not choose to
be placed in the category of opposing temperance,
but I do not believe in the Federal Government,
either by investigation or otherwise, invading

10 SENATOR VEST

what I suppose to be the constitutional province
of the states."

The United States Senate however voted the
measure which provided for such a commission
to be named by the President with the consent of
the Senate, and to be composed of seven, not
more than four of the same political party, and
not to be advocates of prohibition, the commis-
sion to investigate the liquor traffic, its relation
to revenue and taxation, and general economic
aspect.

Senator George Graham Vest stood out for
many years as one of Missouri's leading states-
men. He was born in Frankfort, Kentucky,
December 6, 1830, and passed away at Kansas
City, Missouri, July 9, 1904. It was as a lawyer
that Senator Vest achieved much fame in Mis-
souri, and he was early prominent in its affairs.
He was graduated from Center College, Ken-
tucky, in 1848, and from the law department of
the Transylvania University at Lexington, Ken-
tucky, in 1853. ]

, 7 Mr. Vest was born with negroes, as he once
expressed it, nursed by them, owned them and
never sold one for profit, he declared,, He treated
them as he did members of his own family, and
his former slaves, after the war, came to him in
every adversity and for financial assistance.; Two
of them, one an old nurse who fondled him in
her arms, were recipients of his daily bounty and
lived upon the means he provided them./ Senator,
Vest was a sincere friend of the negroes and
showed it in a human manner.^

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 11

After his admittance to the bar, the subject of
this volume began practice in Georgetown, Mis-
souri, moving to Booneville, Missouri, in 1856.
Mr. Vest was a presidential elector on the Demo-
cratic ticket in 1860, and a member of the Mis-
souri house of representatives in 1860-61. Dur-
ing the war he was a member of the Confederate
Congress. He resumed his law practice in Sedalia,
Missouri, in 1865, and was located there at the
time he was called upon to aid in the dog case at
Warrensburg. Twelve years later he moved to
Kansas City where he thereafter made his home.

When the dark clouds hung over the country
in 1861 and when Missouri was one of the states
where the strife was greatest, George Graham
Vest was elected a member of the Confederate
House of Representatives, serving' two years, and
following that was a member of the Confederate
Senate for a yean Mr. Vest's election to the Con-
federate House followed a meeting of the mem-
bers of the Missouri legislature, who were favor-
able to the Confederacy, the meeting being held
at Neosho, Newton County, two hundred miles
southwest of Jefferson City. There were present
twenty-three of the upper house and seventy-
seven in the lower house of the legislature, and an
act was passed November 2, 1861, unanimously
by these men to ratify an arrangement between
certain commissioners of the state and the Con-
federate Government by which Missouri was to
become a member of the Confederacy.

Two senators were elected to the Confederate
Senate in the persons of John B. Clark and R. L.

12 SENATOR VEST

Y. Peyton, and to the Confederate House of
Representatives were elected George G. Vest,
Thomas A. Harris, Casper W. Bell, A. H.
Conad, Thomas Freeman, Dr. Hyer and W. M.
Cooke.

As a member of the Confederate Congress,
Mr. Vest was prominent and he considered that
Jefferson Davis was loyal to the people he led in
every fiber of his nature, and that this could not
be doubted, save by the blindest prejudice. And
so being granted whether Davis was mistaken in
the conduct of the war or in the policy of his
administration should be a sealed book to all who
sympathized and suffered with him, was Vest's
belief.

The Missouri statesman witnessed in the Con-
federate Congress the bitter attacks on Davis'
administration by Toombs, Yancey and Wigfall,
Confederate leaders, whom he characterized as
Toombs the Mirabeau of the revolution, Yancey
whose lips were touched with fire, now the honey
of persuasion, and then the venom of invective,
Wigfall, brilliant, aggressive and relentless, the
great triumvirate which assailed the Davis ad-
ministration.

Mr. Vest was equally strong in his appreciation
of Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, a member of
the Confederate Congress and later of the United
States Senate. They met first in the Confederate
Congress, Mr. Hill was reluctant to embrace
the Confederate cause, and was the last to leave
it. Met by Vest at Columbus, Georgia, while
preparations were made to abandon Richmond,

CHAMPION OP THE DOG 13

Mr. Hill was engaged in the task of rallying the
people of Georgia in what was a hopeless task.

Senator Vest was an intense admirer of
^/Thomas Jefferson, once making the statement
^that Jefferson was the great political leader in
^ whose doctrines he believed and in whose public
he felt an especial pride and that Jefferson
peculiarly the author of the doctrine of
.^religious toleration in the United States. The
^ first act of Jefferson, when he left the Continental
Congress and became a member of the Virginia
House of Burgesses, was to attack the doctrine
iflf the union of church and state, and assert the
fullest right of freedom of conscience and
/^religious opinion.

>. Jefferson said this was the most terrible
^struggle of his long and eventful career, and
[//against him were united all the great families of
Virginia almost without exception, and, more
/than all, the established church with its ministers
and laity who resented his attack upon church and
Estate as a sacrilege, and as a personal outrage
upon themselves, said Mr. Vest, who further
stated that so terrible was the struggle that the
enmities which it engendered, pursued Jefferson
throughout his life and assailed his memory after
his death.

Senator Vest's independence was never more
strongly displayed than during the movement in
1887 to annul two corporations in Utah, one being
the Immigration Society and the other, the Mor-
mon Church. Mr. Vest expressed his belief that
the agitation would result in a law being passed

14 SENATOR VEST

to annul these corporations, but announced with
vigor that he could not vote for it, saying, that he
was well aware what the public sentiment of the
country was, but that that made no sort of im-
pression on him with his convictions as a legis-
lator, or would any amount of criticism on his
action. He contended that the proposed legisla-
tion violated the fundamental principles of the
Constitution and the rights of property. The
point on which he based his action was that por-
tion which provided for the settling up of the
business of the two corporations after they were
declared not to exist any longer, and for paying
what was left into the United States treasury to
be applied to the common school fund of Utah.
Vest questioned the right of the government to
apply the funds to common school purposes, and
asserted that it was "naked, simple, bold con-
fiscation and nothing else."

In Senator Vest's long career nothing stands
out more sharply than his position on the slavery
question evidenced fifteen years after the close of
the Civil War.

The Claims Committee of the Senate reported
favorably on the claim of Samuel A. Lowe for
$4750. for services claimed to have been rendered
and money expended as Clerk of the Territorial
Legislatmi if Kansas Territory, and for copying
the laws TxUlTiat territory in 1855. Senator John
J. Ingalls of Kansas argued that it was an attempt
to induce the Senate to pay for the compilation
of the infamous slave code of the territory of
Kansas.

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 15

Mr. Vest declared that he was not familiar
with the details of the case but in this connection,
said:

"I have no disposition to go back to the history
of that terrible and unforunate border war; great
outrages were perpetrated by both sides. The
original crime cannot be fastened and never will,
if the pages of history are just to the living and
the dead, upon the people of Missouri. The insti-
tution of slavery has ceased to exist and for my-
self I have no disposition to palliate or excuse
any outrages that may have been committed with
it. I desire that the recollection of them shall
pass away but I know, and hundreds now living
know, the unparalleled outrages perpetrated upon
the people of my state by the men who are
claimed today to have been martyrs in the cause
of liberty and freedom on the soil of Kansas.
The institution of slavery was with us by no voli-
tion of our own, and we were unable to get rid of
it by lawful means at that time."

Following the war Senator Vest's activities and
his fame increased so that in 1879 we find him
entering his duties as United States Senator at
Washington where his service as Senator con-
tinued for twenty-four years. The state of Mis-
souri kept its United States Senators in office for
a long time, Francis M. Cockrell of|feat state
holding the same office for thirty yearsr^nd .both
Vest and Cockrell were of counsel in the famous
Missouri dog case, considered in detail in the
next chapter.

Senator Vest always stressed the point that the

16 SENATOR VEST

work he did to establish the Yellowstone National
Park and to create the Pure Food Act were more
beneficial to humanity than his few words on the
dog. He also always thought that his greatest
speech was his address on Thomas Jefferson given
in Columbia, Missouri, at the unveiling of a
monument dedicated to Jefferson.

Senator Vest was a leading figure in the great
tariff discussion in the Senate in 1892, the oppo-
nents of the protective system being led by Mr.
Vest, who charged that no man could show that
these enormous tariffs had helped the wool-
growers of the United States, claiming that it
was impossible that they could have done so, be-
causes the wool-grower received no part of the
bounty. He claimed that it was nothing but a
bounty, and that it went to the manufacturer, that
it did not go to all the manufacturers, but to a
few of them. The American manufacturer, he
argued, .collected the duty on the wool and put it
in his own pocket. Mr. Vest charged that there
were individual instances of wool manufacturers
who had made enormous profits, as for instance,
the Arlington mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts
'the treasurer of which was Mr. William Whit-
man. Mr. Vest's attack along this line brought
forth a warm reply from Mr. Whitman who had
served for some years in the capacity of President
of the National Association of Wool Manufac-
turers.

Mr. Whitman went so far as to write to Sen-
ator William B. Allison at Washington in which
he set forth that he was not aware of the existence

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 17

of any trust in the wool-manufacturing business,
and did not expect such a combination to be made
under any conditions, that the conditions of wool-
manufacture were such as to make trusts im-
possible.

The controversy between Mr. Vest and Mr.
Whitman raged warmly for a long time and
there was some correspondence between the two,
and in one letter to the Senator from Mr. Whit-
man, the latter declared that he was at first much
irritated by the Senator's attack which seemed to
be unjust and outrageous, but that he then had
reason to believe that Mr. Vest was misled by
some of the young Democrats in Massachusetts,
who had very little knowledge or experience in
business, and who employed a person to u work
up a case" against the Arlington mills in the in-
terests of tariff reform, whose zeal ran away with
his discretion and his regard for the truth. Mr.
Whitman ended by cordially inviting the Senator,
if at any time he could come to Massachusetts, to
personally visit the Arlington mills and satisfy
himself of the truth of what Whitman had writ-
ten, to inspect the books and payrolls of the mills,
to meet and talk with the operators, to see what
homes they lived in, and what they had done by
way of intelligent cooperation for their advan-
tage.

The controversy was the subject of a great deal
of comment pro and con in the newspapers, and
the letter to Senator Allison from Mr. Whitman
was printed in the Congressional Record, in
answer to which Mr. Vest charged that Mr.

18 SENATOR VEST

Whitman above every other man in the United
States was notoriously responsible for the provi-
sions of the McKinley Act in regard to the wool
tariff. This controversy was one of the outstand-
ing features of Senator Vest's services in the Sen-
ate and has been referred to, to illustrate the
great force of character of the late Senator from
Missouri.

This strength of character of Senator Vest is
also illustrated by his speech in the Senate of
February 16, 1903, at almost the close of his
senatorial career. In this he said with emphasis
that he wanted to make one observation in regard
to points of order, for he should probably never
again have an opportunity to discuss the question
in the Senate.

He declared, "My experience In a great many
years of service in this body, is that the Senate
of the United States, that is, the majority gen-
erally does what it wants to do without regard to
the rules. I never have known an instance when
the sentiment in the Senate was decidedly in favor
of certain legislation, that the rule was not over-
ridden and disregarded if the Senate could pos-
sibly get a vote as to the rule."

Senator Vest asserted that he never considered
that his speech on the dog deserved any great
place in the annals of oratory but the consensus
of opinion of the thousands of people who have
read his address to the jury in this case, is that
his tribute to canine fidelity was a masterpiece and
has become world famous.

Mr. Vest was close to forty years of age at the

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 19

time he made this address, he being at that time
a practicing attorney at Sedalia, Missouri, and
associated in the case with Attorney John F.
Philips of Sedalia, afterwards Commissioner of
the Supreme Court of Missouri, and then Judge
of the United States District Court for the west-
ern district of Missouri.

Mr. Vest, early in life, displayed affection for
the dog and oftentimes praised the race which
the poet characterized as "possessing beauty with-
out vanity, strength without insolence, courage
without ferocity, and all the virtues of man with-
out his vices."

The last survivor who heard Mr. Vest make
his remarkable dog address was Colonel Wells
H. Blodgett of St. Louis, widely known attorney
who died May 8 of this year (1929) and was
ninety years old. He was associated with Mr.
Vest and other attorneys for the plaintiff in the
case. Colonel Blodgett served as a State Senator
in Missouri, afterwards became identified with
the Wabash Railroad and was the President and
General Solicitor for the road.

Colonel Blodget died of the infirmities of age.
He retired in 1915 after forty-three years as head
of the Wabash Railroad legal department. At
the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted as
private and rose rapidly to Colonel of the Forty-
eighth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, winning the
Congressional Medal of Honor. He entered the
practice of law at Warrensburg, Missouri, and
served one term each as State Representative and
State Senator before he came to St. Louis.

20 .SENATOR VEST

Colonel Blodgett in later life was known as the
nestor of the St. Louis bar. In the famous dog
case as one of the attorneys for the plaintiff Bur-
den, he was the one who engaged Senator Vest
to participate in the trial, doing this at the sug-
gestion of his client.

On February 15, 1894, the Congressional
Medal of Honor was awarded to Colonel Blod-
gett for distinguished gallantry in action at New-
tonia, Missouri, September 20, 1862, (then 1st
Lieutenant, Co, D, 37th Illinois infantry vol-
unteers) the citation reciting, u With a single
orderly, he captured an armed picket of eight men
and marched them in prisoners."

Mr. Vest's famous speech on the dog was the
subject of action in the 1927 Missouri Legisla-
ture, being read there in a debate on the question
of canine tax, the speech being ordered as a part
of the fifty-fourth general assembly's record.
During the dying hours of the legislature, a dead-
lock was relieved for a few minutes by one of the
Senators reading the piece, after another Senator
had endeavored to secure consent to pass a bill
placing a tax on all dogs in the state and eliminat-
ing predatory dogs in the sheep-raising districts
of the state.

A burst of applause followed the reading of
the Vest dog speech, and the speech^was ordered
printed as part of the record, the author of the
canine tax however being unable to obtain consent
to place the bill for final passage.

Mr. Vest's long term in the Senate was in itself
a very active service. Keenly alive to the needs

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 21

of his constituents in the state of Missouri, he
presented many bills in their behalf, participated
in a great amount of committee work, and was
one of the most active men in the Senate. In the
questions of national importance few were more
prominent in the debate than he. In those days
Senators Allison, Teller, and Hoar, notable
strong men in the Senate, were often heard. Sen-
ator Vest went deep into every subject in which
he became interested, having many consultations
with people from whom information could be
gleaned, and gave thorough consideration to the
various angles involved. A practicing lawyer for
years before he entered the Senate, his mind was
equipped for unusual service in matters in which
question of law and of fact were involved. He
also kept in touch with men in various parts of
the country who were in a position to furnish him
information on questions to be threshed out in the
Senate. George G. Vest in short could well have
been termed "a working Senator."

He was an uncompromising foe to women's
suffrage and 6nce expressed his sentiments on this
question in language like this:

"What man can without aversion turn from the
blessed memory of that dear old grandmother, or
the gentle word and caressing hand of that
blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to
face in its stead the idea of a female justice of
the peace or township constable. For my part, I
want, when I go to my home, when I turn from
the arena where man contends with man for what
we call the prizes of this paltry world, to go back

22 SENATOR VEST

not to be received in the masculine embraces of
some female ward politician, but to the earnest,
loving look and touch of a true woman. I would
not, and I say it, deliberately degrade woman by
giving her the right of suffrage. I believe that
woman as she is today, the queen of home and
hearts, is above the political collisions of this
world, and should always be kept above them."

But few more inspiring words were ever spoken
by any statesman than were those uttered by Sen-
ator Vest in the Senate when he presented a bill
in behalf of the family of General James Shields.

General Shields, widely known Union soldier,
was succeeded in the Senate at his death by Mr.
Vest, and the latter moved in the bill that pay-
ment of a pension of $100.00 monthly granted
some time before to General Shields, be continued
to his wife and children, on the ground that the
family was then in indigent circumstances. The
bill was passed. General Shields left his family
only his glory and sword, declared Mr. Vest in
his support of the bill. Continuing he said, "Com-
ing from a nationality which has been unfortunate
enough to pour its blood like water in defense of
every country except their own, there is not an
Irish heart in these free United States that will
not beat with gratitude to this Congress for this
sincere evidence of their appreciation of the ser-
vices of their heroic countryman."

Attached to the bill for the relief of the family
of General Shields was a provision of $100.00
monthly to be paid to Caroline S. Webster, widow
of Colonel Fletcher Webster, Colonel of the 12th

CHAMPION OF THE DOC 23

Massachusetts regiment, killed at the second
battle of Bull Run. Colonel Webster was the son
of the immortal Daniel Webster.

The subject of this volume, in his varied public
experience and in many utterances of an out-
spoken nature, favored strongly reducing the
course at the military academy at West Point to
two years, as the ^remedy for hazing, and make
it a strictly professional school. He claimed the
faculty was loaded with a mass of elementary sub-
jects in the physical sciences, in mathematics and
even in languages which could be taught as well
or better in the private and state schools of the
country. West Point, he thought,* should confine
itself to the specialties of the soldier's vocation.

Senator Vest in his very colorful career vigor-
ously opposed the movement to place Ex-Pres-
ident U. S. Grant on the retired list of the army.
The Missouri statesman opposed it in principle
from beginning to end, but he proclaimed General
Grant as one who passed into history beyond
question as the greatest general of the Civil War.
For General Grant's military skill Mr. Vest pub-
licly expressed the very greatest admiration.

The course pursued by General Grant at the
close of the Civil War upon the hill of Appomat-
tox, when he handed back to General Lee the lat-
ter's sword, brought forth from Mr. Vest the
statement that every southern heart went out in
gratitude to Grant for his generous treatment of
Lee.

Mr. Vest's contention was, however, that when
General Grant left the place provided for him

24 SENATOR VEST

by the representatives of the people and when he
entered the arena of partisan politics, and when
he took the chances of public life, he should stand
the hazard of the die. The Senator emphasized
that he disclaimed all personal hostility to Grant,
and that his opposition was a matter of principle,
and that as a representative of the people he could
not consent to provide places for generals, no mat-
ter how distinguished, who like senators, had
taken the chances of political life and been beaten.

Senator Vest as a practicing attorney had a
wide and varied practice of the law. During the
political campaign of 1870 in Missouri, it was
deemed desirable by a party termed Liberal Re-
publicans to establish a newspaper at Sedalia in
the 5th Congressional district in that state. Can-
didates on this ticket in conjunction with leading
politicians instead of starting such a paper on an
independent basis, concluded it was more advis-
able to make an arrangement with a company
called the Democratic Press Companv which
already owned a newspaper plant, to publish their
proposed paper, and under this arrangement,
eio:ht people, including one Ritter, were named as
a board of managers. The canvass proved unsuc-
cessful and the company which owned the Demo-
cratic Press plant, sued the managers to recover
a claim for expense of printing the paper. Judg-
ment was recovered against seven of the man-
agers including Ritter. The latter paid his share
and also that of one Bannon, and why he paid
for the latter was not explained.

In an action of Ritter against the Democratic

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 25

Press Company, he sought to recover the money
he had paid on the ground that three of the man-
agers had colluded with the press company and
made arrangements as would discharge their
liability without the knowledge of Ritter.

The latter lost his case. Mr. Vest was counsel
for the Democratic Press Company.

A man of great mental activity was the lawyer
of Missouri, whose tribute to the dog gained him
as much if not more fame than did twenty years'
service in the Senate of the United States.

Senator Vest had some ideas on death and once
expressed himself in this impressive language:

"It is said that death is the great enemy of our
race but under certain circumstances and environ-
ments this is not true. When the young, vigorous,
ambitious and hopeful are stricken down, we
stand shocked as if before some unfinished paint-
ing or statue where the pencil or chisel has fallen
from the nerveless hand of a great artist; but
when life's work is done, when the task is finished,
and we simply await the inevitable end death is
oftentimes a friend."

Such then were some of the salient facts in the
life of a busy man, who found time to give atten-
tion to many different avenues of pursuit, and who
was as much at home trying a dog case, as he was
in debate in the Senate of the United States.

No state in the union suffered more from inter-
necine strife and neighborhood war than Mis-
souri, according to Mr. Vest, who said that the
wounds there inflicted were deep and cruel, no

26 .SENATOR VEST

man being willing to prophesy when their memory
would pass away.

The death of Congressman Alfred M. Lay of
Missouri in 1879, shortly after his election to the
National House, called for a beautiful tribute
from Mr. Vest, who for twenty-five years had
been a close friend of the Congressman.

Mr. Vest said that Lay had often told him that
it was the dream of his boyhood to represent his
native state in the National Congress, and said
Vest, "At last after years of struggle, the hour
came when his hand reached to the prize and even
in that moment he was stricken down."

"In all political and even personal history, I do
not know a sadder page than that upon which is
written the termination of the ensuing canvass
and of a life's ambition."

Vest's tribute to Lay included this impressive
language :

"No life is perfect, but each has its aggregate
of good or evil; and, aside from empty pane-
gyric, this, at last must be the question as each
of us drifts out upon the shoreless ocean, was
his life for good or evil, were its duties per-
formed?"

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 27

CHAPTER II

SENATOR VEST AND THE STORY OF
"OLD DRUM"

In the latter part of 1869, four years follow-
ing the close of the contest between the North and
the South, in the state of Missouri, the feeling of
unrest still lingered in the minds of its people and
sometimes small matters started trouble. At this
time two of the residents of Kingsville, Johnson
County, Missouri, were Charles Burden and
Leonidas Hornsby who were destined as plaintiff
and defendant to figure in a long drawn out law-
suit which engaged the services of some of Mis-
souri's greatest lawyers, and the trial of which
brought out the late Senator Vest's splendid trib-
ute to the dog.

Old residents said that at this time in 1869
in Missouri wild game was in sight and the male
residents kept their hound dogs for the chase.
Burden kept a pack and among them was
"Old Drum," the dog that he said "never
lied," When this dog gave tongue his owner
knew what it was about. This dog led the
pack and in October of 1869 he was in the
neighborhood of five years old. Black and tan,
and Burden had been heard to express the opinion
that there was some bloodhound in him. His
owner often declared that money could not buy

28 SENATOR VEST

him, and that he was the best dog for deer he
had ever possessed.

Burden was a real honest-to-goodness hunter
and had, on a number of times, crossed the
plains. Six feet tall with blue eyes and light hair,
he had a strong constitution and at the time was
in his prime. Like the real doggy man of the
present day Burden loved a Old Drum." They
were real comrades, and next to Burden's family
came the hound.

A few miles from the Burden homstead lived
Hornsby, described as a small wiry man with red
hair, a vigorous man, and a hunter.

During the few months of the summer and
fall of 1869, Hornsby had lost many sheep
killed by dogs, and made his threat that he
would kill the first dog he found on his
property. He had himself hunted with "Old
Drum" as he had with others of his neighbor's
dogs.

It was on the evening of October 28, 1869,
that Burden and Frank Hornsby sitting about the
former's house heard a gun fired, the report com-
ing from the direction of the home of Lon
Hornsby. Only one shot was heard but Burden
expressed the fear' that one of his dogs had been
killed. He left his house to listen but heard noth-
ing. He blew his horn for the dogs, and all came
up but "Old Drum" who failed to respond to the
summons which rang out in the night. Once again
Burden blew his horn but no answer from
"Drum."

On this day Lon Hornsby and Dick Ferguson

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 29

had been hunting around the lake and Big Creek
and returned home when darkness came on.
Around eight o'clock someone remarked that
there was a dog in the yard. Lon told Dick to get
a gun and shoot the dog, it was alleged. Dick
secured the weapon, stepped out of the house and
saw a dog in the shadow of a tree about thirty
steps away. There was a report of the gun and
howling of the canine mortally wounded. He ran
toward the southwest and jumped over some stile
blocks. The crying of the animal grew fainter and
weaker until it at last died away.

Here then started something. Started a litiga-
tion which kept the attention of the Missouri'
courts at five trials, including the famous speech of
Senator Vest which is preserved to all posterity
because of its truth and its appreciation to all
dogs and their owners.

Burden, the owner of "Old Drum," declared
with great vehemence that he would have satis-
faction at the cost of his own life, and on the next
morning, that of October 29, 1869, Burden began
his search for the old hound he loved so well. He
went first to a neighbor, Hurley, of whom he in-
quired if he had seen the hound. From there he
went to the home of Lon Hornsby where he found
the latter making cider. Hornsby was asked
"What dog was that you shot last night?" The
reply was that he had not shot any dog but that
Dick had. Burden declared, "If it's my dog it's
all wrong and I will have satisfaction at the cost
of mylife."

On the next morning "Old Drum" was found a

30 SENATOR VEST

few feet near the ford, on Big Creek, dead, his
head filled with shot, in the water. Apparently
he had been carried or dropped to this spot. It
transpired that two dogs were shot at the same
hour that night within two miles of each other,
but only one body was found and that was Bur-
den's hound. Burden decided right on the spot
that he would go to law and get his revenge.
Records show that he went to Kingsville and en-
gaged counsel to sue Lon Hornsby, and the suit
was duly filed in the court of Justice of the
Peace Munroe in the town of Madison, and
on November 29, 1869, the case went on
trial. The law firm of Nation and Allen, at-
torneys for Hornsby, presented a motion to dis-
miss the action on the ground that the amount
asked for, one hundred dollars, was outside the
jurisdiction of the justice of the peace. The latter
allowed Burden to amend his complaint, reducing
the amount asked for to fifty dollars and the trial
proceeded, ending in a disagreement of the jury.

On January 27, 1870, the case again went to
trial before the justice and the jury, assessed
damages for Burden to the amount of twenty-five
dollars, establishing to the satisfaction of the
jurymen that Lon Hornsby had caused Dick Fer-
guson to kill the hound.

But the litigation had only just begun, the de-
fendant appealing to the Johnson County Court
of Common Pleas, where it was slated for trial
in March, 1870, at Warrensburg. New attorneys
had been retained by both sides, Crittenden and
Cockrell for the defendant, Elliott and Blodgett

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 31

for the plaintiff. At this trial of the now famous
case, the defendant received a verdict in his favor.
Thereupon Burden retained Phillips and Vest as
counsel who presented a motion for a new trial,
which motion was sustained after the plaintiff had
advanced the claim that he had discovered new
evidence.

In October of 1870, the case went to trial for
the second time in the Court of Common Pleas
at Warrensburg, the trial taking place in the old
courthouse which is still standing. The friends of
both sides were out in force, depositions of wit-
nesses from other states had been taken and were
read. The attorneys for Burden proved the
shooting at the defendant's dog, the finding of
"Old Drum's" remains, and by deduction that on
the night of the shooting, his body was carried to
the creek and left there. Hornsby himself and
witnesses showed the shooting of a dog, but
denied that it was the hound that had been killed.

After the evidence, and listening to the claims
of the defense that "Old Drum" was not at the
Hornsby house when a dog was killed, the case
closed. Aguments were made by the attorneys.
What all these attorneys said is not remembered
distinctly, but the closing argument for Burden by
George Graham Vest, is reverberating along
down all these years.

Mr. Vest at this time was busy preparing a case
which finally went to the Missouri Supreme Court
in which he was counsel for appellants, which
case involved a controversy over the lease of a
farm in Jbhnson County, Missouri, the lessees

32 SENATOR VEST

finding that when the time arrived for them to
take possession of the farm, a farmer tenant hold-
ing over, refused to surrender possession.

The day of the great speech for the dog was a
cold one, so cold that Mr. Vest had not taken
time to shave before leaving his hotel for the
courthouse, the hotel being across the street from
the courthouse.

The exact facts of Senator Vest's connection
with the case, as now related to the author by a
member of the Senator's family, is as follows :

That Senator Vest, a young lawyer at that time,
was attending a session of the circuit Court at
Warrensburg, Missouri, and that while waiting
for the trial of a case in which he was interested,
a case came up for trial in which a farmer filed
an action in damages against a neighbor for the
unlawful killing of his hound dog, in the amount
of fifty dollars. The lawyer who represented the
plaintiff in the case invited young Vest to aid him
in the trial of the claim for damages. Vest agreed
to do so for the stipulated fee of ten dollars.
During the examination and cross examination of
the witnesses, both for the plaintiff and the de-
fense, Vest kept absolutely quiet and took no part
in the proceeding. When the witnesses on both
sides had all been heard, and the time had arrived
for arguments to the jury, the plaintiff's lawyer
made the opening address to the jury, the defense
lawyer then spoke and the plaintiff's lawyer then
asked young Vest if he did not care to address
the jury. Vest said no, he thought the case had
been tried as well as it could be tried, and the

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 33

plaintiff's lawyer then said that if he did not take
some part in the proceedings, he thought that his
client would object to him receiving any fee and
that he had better make the closing address to the
jury. Young Vest then arose and without notes
or any preparation at all, spoke the few words
which have become so famous.

At the close of his address tears were running
down the faces of several members of the jury,
and after but three or four minutes' deliberation,
the jury returned to the court and announced that
they had found for the plaintiff and assessed dam-
ages against the defendant in the sum of $500.00.
The court then instructed the jury that the dam-
ages could not be assessed in excess of the amount
prayed for in the petition, which was $50.00, so
the damages were then assessed at $50.00.

The address to the jury by Mr. Vest which will
ever be a monument to "Old Drum" and the
canine race is couched in this language:

"Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a
man has in the world may turn against him and
become his enemy. His son or daughter that he
has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful.
Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those
whom we trust with our happiness and our good
name may become traitors to their faith.
The money that a man has he may lose.
It flies away from him, perhaps, when he
needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacri-
ficed in a moment of ill-considered action. The
people who are prone to fall on their knees to
do us honor when success is with us may be the

34 SENATOR VEST

first to throw the stone of malice when failure
settles its cloud upon our heads. The one abso-
lutely unselfish friend that man can have in this
selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the
one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous,
is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in pros-
perity and poverty, in health and sickness. He
will sleep on the cold ground where the wintry
winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only
he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the
hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the
wounds and sores that come in encounter with the
roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of
his pauper master as if he were a prince. When
all other friends desert he remains. When riches
take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as
constant in his love as the sun in its journey
through the heavens.

"If fortune drives the master forth an outcast
in the world, friendless and homeless, the faith-
ful dog asks no higher privilege than that of
accompanying him, to guard against danger, to
fight against his enemies, and when the last scene
of all comes, and death takes the master in its
embrace, and his body is laid away in the cold
ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their
way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be
found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad,
but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true
even in death."

After two trials before the trial justice and
two in the Court of Common Pleas, the end was
not in sight* The defendant's counsel appealed the

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 35

action to the Supreme Court of Missouri alleging
that the justice had erred in permitting the
amendment of the statement from $100.00 to
$50.00 and that the Common Pleas Court erred
in giving Burden a new trial. Supreme Court Jus-
tice Bliss ruled against the defendant in the fol-
lowing decision :

"Suit was brought originally before a Justice
of the Peace for killing plaintiff's dog, and the
damages were laid at $100.00. On motion to dis-
miss for excess of claim, the plaintiff amended his
statement so as to make his claim but $50.00 and
went to trial. This leave to amend is the first
error complained of, but it was perfectly proper
to make the correction. The defendant appealed
and upon trial the verdict was in his favor. The
court however on the plaintiff's motion, granted
a new trial, and this is also claimed to be erro-
neous. It has long since been settled in Missouri
that error will not lie for granting a new trial.
The reasons are set forth in Helm vs. Bassett 9
Mo. 52 and the doctrine is affirmed in Keating
vs. Bradford 25 Mo. 86. Upon the second trial
the evidence was all submitted to the jury upon
fair instructions, and the case should have stopped
there. I find no error whatever in the record.
Judgment affirmed. The other judges concur."

Thus the Missouri Supreme Court and the
Common Pleas Court affirmed that Ferguson by
the direction of Lon Hornsby killed "Old Drum."

About everybody who figured in the case has
passed away. Charles Burden died in Holden,
Missouri; Hornsby is dead, and all the attorneys

36 SENATOK VEST

are dead. Senator Cockrell died December 13,
1915, and John F. Philips on March 13, 1919.
Colonel A. W. Rogers also an attorney for the
defendant was one of the founders of Phi Delta
Theta while at Miami University of Ohio. Sen-
ator Cockrell, Confederate soldier, known as
Missouri's grand old man, wanted to be Gov-
ernor of Missouri in 1874, and lacked only one-
sixth of one vote in a state convention of secur-
ing the nomination which would have given him
the election. This is believed to be the closest
shave on record for an important office.

Silas S. Woodson was nominated for Governor.
Also besides Cockrell, were candidates Colman
and George Graham Vest. The people of Mis-
souri who remember this vigorous campaign for
the governorship of Missouri in '74 tell the story
of that toward the end of the race Vest went
home and somebody asked him how he was get-
ting on. "Oh, hell," he replied, "I am doing no
good. It seems to me half of the Confederate
Army must have served in CockrelPs brigade."

When the war closed, Vest returned to Mis-
souri from the Confederate Senate and Cockrell
from the Confederate Army, the two men locat-
ing in two great, rich adjoining counties. Vest
went into partnership with John F. Philips, a
Union Colonel while Cockrell formed a partner-
ship with Thomas T. Crittenden, another Union
Colonel.

For forty years these two law firms dominated
the politics of Missouri. The late Champ Clark,
himself long a national figure, once stated that no

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 37

state ever had a better senatorial team than
Cockrell and Vest who served side by side in the
United States Senate for twenty-four years. Clark
characterized Vest as one of the crack orators of
his generation and Cockrell as one of the most
indefatigable workers who ever lived, that Vest
and Cockrell were effective, strong speakers, the
former being witty, humorous, sarcastic, eloquent
and lathered the Republicans up with vitriol so as
to infuriate them almost to apoplexy, while Cock-
rell confined himself to historic facts, and made a
specialty of arithmetic.

The firm of Philips and Vest and the firm of
Crittenden and Cockrell were linked together by
the ties of friendship and religion and the trials
of war. All four were Presbyterians. CockrelPs
retirement from the United States Senate in 1905
resulted from a Republican legislature electing
William Warner to succeed him. President
Roosevelt's comment on this change was that the
people of Missouri had lost a faithful servant,
but that the government would not lose him, and
he appointed Cockrell a member of the Interstate
Commerce Commission.

In the report of the case, Charles Burden vs.
Leonidas Hornsby 50 Mo. 238, less than one
page is taken by the entire case, the opinion of
Justice Bliss covering less than half a page. Dave
Nation, one of the first attorneys in the suit
attained no fame outside of his own town, but
he was the husband of Carrie Nation, famous for
a time as the "woman with the hatchet."

The courthouse in which the Vest speech was

38 SENATOR VEST

made, still standing in Warrensburg, has been the
mecca of visitors from every state in the Union
in the years since 1870. The record and all the
filings in the case are still in the office of the
Clerk of the Circuit Court in Warrensburg, and
have been perused many, many times. The record
itself fails, of course, to tell the real story of the
human interest this lawsuit brought forth. Thou-
sands of copies of Senator Vest's address have
been circulated all over this country and many
parts of Europe. How it has been set up as the
slogan of dog-lovers of the United States, many
of whom having been left friendless, still lived
on with only the dog for a companion.

Hounds of the "Old Drum" type were "folks"
in Missouri sixty years ago as they are "folks"
in South Carolina today. Their masters were all
bound up in them and today in South Carolina
the owner of "Ring" a clever foxhound, paid
$1000.00 to get him dug out of a den, after six
days' captivity, resulting from chasing a fox.
"Ring" died a few hours after he was rescued, of
pneumonia, and his owner expended another large
sum to provide a suitable marker for "Ring's"
last resting place.

Hounds especially "eat" themselves into the
affections of their masters, and "Old Drum," hero
of the most famous dog case in all history, and
"Ring," leader of the hounds at Woodruff, South
Carolina, are two noted examples of this breed,
although they lived nearly sixty years apart. In
fact, all dogs were "folks" in Missouri sixty years
ago, as is further evidenced by another dog case

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 39

in that state, which like the Burden case finally
wound up in the Supreme Court of Missouri for
final disposition. Jacob Cantting was the plain-
tiff in this case, and the Han. & St. Joe R. R. Co.
was the defendant.

Cantting was returning from a hunting expedi-
tion and boarded a train of the defendant at St.
Joseph. His dog was with him, a well trained
setter and valuable, he claimed, as a water dog,
He claimed he was informed by the baggage-
master of the train, that the animal would not be
allowed in the passenger coach, and Cantting
claimed he placed the dog in the charge of the
baggage-master and paid the latter for the dog's
transportation. By the regulations which were
posted at the various stations "live animals" were
allowed as baggage-masters' perquisites.

The plaintiff claimed the baggage-master
agreed to transport the dog to New Cambria for
$1.50, which was paid. He further claimed that
the railroad employe delivered the dog to some
person, not the owner, and at some station, not
New Cambria. The plaintiff in his suit recovered
a verdict for $90.00, and the railroad carried
the case to the Missouri Supreme Court at the
October term in 1873, which sustained the ver-
dict. The principal witness for the plaintiff in the
lower court said the animal was worth $100.00.
Several other witnesses were examined as to the
value of hunting dogs and testified their price
varied from $50.00 to $75.00, admitting how-
ever that this depended very much on the fancy
of the purchaser.

40 SENATOR VEST

Senator Vest, while the man who gave the
greatest speech for the dog in all history, was at
the same time in favor of all agencies to prevent
the inflicting of injury by dogs. He once said, "I
cannot conceive a case in which there ought to be
any question about muzzling every dog in a town
or city where there is any sort of suspicion that
this terrible malady (rabies) exists."

"If there is a possibility of their being such a
disease, I would muzzle every dog in this county,
rather than have a single human suffer from it."

Some people are willing to keep fancy dogs,
even if they pay $500.00 or $1000.00, as some
insane people do, Mr. Vest remarked once, and
he said he had very little respect for them.

The wonderful command of language of Mr.
Vest as evidenced in his speech for the dog, was
many times shown in his tributes on the death of
some of the great Americans during the present
century.

The passing of Vice-President Thomas A. Hen-
dricks in 1885, called forth a beautiful tribute
from Vest, in part as follows :

"He was the noblest type of American man-
hood, self-reliant and self-made. Incorruptible in
public life and pure in private conduct, asking and
giving no quarter. He did not sprinkle rosewater
over the enemies of his party, nor give sweet-
meats to the political wolves and tigers ready to
spring at his throat. He died suddenly as falls
a chieftain on some stricken field, and it was well.
Better one pang, one throb, than weeks of pain
and slow decay. Better to fall like the struck

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 41

eagle whose full stretched wing droops in mid-
heaven above the mountain top, than to writhe
through weary days and sleepless nights waiting
the inevitable hour."

Senator Vest's splendid eulogy of the dog finds
echo this year in an opinion by Asst. Attorney-
General Holland of Missouri, regarding the
status of a u houn' dawg," in answer to a request
by a Missouri man to the Governor of that state
wherein the man sought to know what rights at-
tached to his dog by reason of the license he had
procured for him. Mr. Holland's opinion is full
of human interest and says :

"Speaking personally, I indulge the hope that
the discussion which follows will interest you. I
must confess that the eulogy of the dog by the
late Senator Vest left such a profound impression
upon me that I cannot resist the temptation
offered by your letter to restate, in much humbler
language, the regard in which men hold dogs and
the laws they have caused to be enacted concern-
ing them.

"It may be well to recall the questions that you
ask by way of obeisance to the shrine of legal
order* Your letter follows:

" 'I am writing you to find out where a dog
license is any protection to a dog. If not, where
is the use of paying out that money. The Mayor
here says a license does not protect the dog in the
least; that, if it leaves home, the officer has a
right to kill it. Will you please let me know where
a license does protect the dog and does it have
a right away from home, either day or night?"

42 SENATOR VEST

"The State of Missouri devotes an entire chap-
ter of the Revised Statutes of 1919 to 'Dogs.' It
solemnly assures us that a 'dog (section 4353)
shall be held and construed to mean all animals
of the canine species, whether male or female.'
From that simple pronouncement there evolves a
widening circle of state and municipal legislation
that weaves about every canine who after nine
days of darkness opens his eyes upon the sturdy
mountains and verdant rolling plains of our great
state.

"In the all-inclusive fold above outlined we find
the aristocracy and the serfdom of the dog. It
includes the snobbish Pomeranian, curled in sweet
contentment upon the social dowager's lap; it
embraces the rugged, stately and commanding St.
Bernard; the fine-limbed, alert, aggressive police
dog; and, lest we stoop to sacrilegious forgetful-
ness, it comprehends also the reliable and rever-
enced old 'houn' dawg' of Missouri tradition.

"Somewhere between these vast extremes there
stands your dog, a lonely figure in this towering
controversy that has already whisked into its
maelstrom the Governor of your state, the Mayor
of your city, and finally, with a confession of deep
humility in the presence of such august array, your
humble servant.

"This framework lays the foundation for us
to repeat anew the position your dog or any of
his species holds in our complex social scheme.

"First, we consider him as he is, a legal entity.
He is your personal property. The courts have
so declared. The sparkling Kohinoor diamond;

/CHAMPION OF THE DOG 43

the vast array of furniture under which the May-
flower struggled to these shores; the antiques of
the Napoleonic period; the tapestries of the
Hapsburgs of other days he is as they are per-
sonal property; only that and nothing more.

"The state, with its inherent rights to tax, has
made its levy upon all of these. They have no
privilege but to be. They exist, and, because they
do, the state exacts its due.

"The right to tax a dog, basically, is as old as
tax itself. It is no sentimental thing. The state
does not envision the high intelligence of your
dog's searching eyes; it is denied the thrill you
have in the furious greeting of its wagging tail;
it does not comprehend the fond and loving joy-
fulness of his welcome. To the state your dog is
just a chattel. He is, and, because he is, you
must pay tribute to government for the pleasure
that ownership gives you in any personal prop-
erty.

"However, taxing a dog is a municipal func-
tion. As this great century dawned, the great
state of Kentucky, which had theretofore en-
shrined and ennobled the horse, declared in 1901
that a tax on dogs was a valid exercise of the
police power to regulate the ownership and keep-
ing of dogs.

"Six years sped by. And then the State of
California, land of sunset and of census, rushed
in to say that taxing dogs was not inconsistent
with the right of cities to license any kind of busi-
ness not prohibited by law. It declared in solemn
mandate that the levy of the tax need not be made

44 SENATOR VEST

at any day certain, nor would it be void for fail-
ure to do this. The thought persists that it
granted the dog at no time planned or sought to
evade the tax, and that, when the bright and
shining disc of license was placed upon his collar,
he was no whit the wiser nor any whit the happier.

"Thus far everything has been against the dog.
The drone of constant tax has been about his
ears. But then came New York with the first step
in his behalf. It thrust aside the clicking of its
stock tickers and ignored its sunrise curfew law.
It said in one sweet dulcet tone that he was en-
titled to broader rights, greater protection and
professional care and then in a deep and
strident crescendo roared out its declaration that
he still must bow beneath the weight of tax
even as you and I.

"It said briefly that a tax on dogs might be
levied, and then diverted to a specially incorpor-
ated humane society, where the funds thus ob-
tained would be deployed over the army of less
fortunate and untaxed dogs.

"The world waited for Missouri. The tax and
the care of dogs had been adjudicated. What of
his life?

"Missouri held, under the spell of Christmas
of 1924, that, if a man shot a dog maliciously, he
must pay his owner twice his value ; if he shot him,
but without malice, then his actual value. The
presumption lies that, if he shot him in any other
mental attitude, it was too bad for dog and owner,
too.

"This brings us to what your dog may do under

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 45

the license granted by your city. The state, you
know, has passed the privilege on to your city,
and this matter really is between you and your
home town.

"The license protects your dog in his right to
be just what he is, your dog. If you were to
refuse to pay taxes upon your house, the state
might sell it; if you refused to pay tax upon your
income to the state or federal government, you
might be fined or imprisoned. So with your dog.
It means only that you have paid the state its
tribute for ownership of property and earned the
right to the companionship of 'man's noblest
friend.' As for the dog, it is nothing more than
a constitutional occupation tax; his simple occu-
pation is to be a dog.

" 'And does it have a right to stay away from
home, either day or night?' you ask.

"There comes the saddest phase of all this case.
It summons up the thought of unrequited love.
Why should a dog, with a master so tender of his
interest that he invokes the intervention of the
Governor himself, desire to be away from home,
either day or night? This question is one of
canine fickleness that defies the research of any
legal huntsman. It lies entrenched within the
realm of the psychologist.

"His right to be away from home, legally, lies
in whether he is muzzled or on leash in accord-
ance with municipal regulation. He must be kept
by you at all times where a striking fancy or pass-
ing whim would not permit him to do harm to
others. This is not harsh, and yet the mandate

46 SENATOR VEST

is final and unyielding. Remember the same
sovereignty that cries out its warning to your dog
in another moment thrusts a millionaire behind
the bars.

"Thus a license merely is the state's approval
of your right to hold property. The city must
tell you how to tie him up and hedge him in. The
mayor is right; long live the mayor.

"Some comfort there should be. As witness:

" 'When all other friends desert, he remains.
When riches take wing and reputation falls to
pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its
journey through the heavens.'

"Senator Vest said that. I repeat it. You and
every one will grant it. A license is his only due.
Give it to him and be content.

"I trust this letter does not bore nor tire you.
But memories of Maryville are happy in my retro-
spect. Tell Bill Phares and Fred Hull about your
dog, and they will agree with me that he is yours
to have and to enjoy with license. "

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 47

CHAPTER III

SENATOR VEST AND THE
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

Mr. Vest's great interest in the Yellowstone
National Park was apparent soon after his elec-
tion in 1879 to the United States Senate, and he
was a member of the Presidential party which
passed through the park in 1883 and which beside
Mr. Vest was made up of Honorable Chester A.
Arthur, President of the United States, John S.
Crosby, Governor of Montana territory, Michael
V. Sheridan, Lieutenant-Colonel and Military
Secretary, Lieutenant-General Philip H. Sher-
man of the United States Army, Brigadier-Gen-
eral Anson Stager, United States Vol., Captain
W. A. Clark, 2nd Cavalry United States Army,
D. G. Rollins, Surrogate of New York, Lieuten-
ant-Colonel James F. Gregory, Honorable Robert
T. Lincoln, Secretary of War.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the jour-
ney was between Fort Washakie, Wyoming, and
the Northern Pacific Railroad at Cinnabar, Mon-
tana, the party traveling entirely by horseback,
and with it was a pack train escorted by a com-
pany of cavalry. Couriers were at every twenty
miles with fresh relays so that the party was able
to communicate daily with the world at large and

48 SENATOR VEST

it traveled in all three hundred and fifty miles
over some very wild country.

Along the route the real enjoyable pastime was
trout fishing in which Senator Vest was an adept.
This expedition and various others into the region
of the park had more or less bearing on the enact-
ment of the National Park Protective Act in
1894, an act to protect the animals in the park.

President Arthur on this trip was the guest of
Lieutenant-General Sheridan. No newspaper
representative was in the party and associated
press dispatches were sent while the party was en
route, most of them being written by Lieutenant-
Colonel M. V. Sheridan and by Lieutenant-
Colonel J. F. Gregory, and at least one dispatch
was written by the other members of the party in-
cluding Mr. Vest, except President Arthur, who
however heard the dispatches read and approved
them before they were sent.

Senator Vest in the Senate was the outstanding
friend of the park, and opposed the various segre-
gative schemes involving the park, and he was
invariably on guard against anything which might
work to its injury. Senator Vest went into every
phase of the Yellowstone Park question. Its early
history, and the various expeditions and scientific
explorations from the time of John Colter, a
member of the Lewis and Clark expedition who
was the first white man to view any part of what
is now Yellowstone Park. In 1807 after being
wounded in a battle between the Crow and Black-
feet Indians, he journeyed across the park from

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 49

Jackson Hole to Tomer Fall and carried the first
accounts to civilization.

When it became apparent that the Govern-
ment would never consent to the construction of a
railroad within the park, it was sought to compass
the same by cutting off that portion of the reserva-
tion outside of and including the present right of
way.

In one of his speeches to the Senate, opposing
the segregation project, Mr. Vest referred to this
subject with great indignation, saying: u When
these states (Montana, Wyoming and Idaho)
were territories, and not represented in the Sen-
ate, I considered it the duty of every Senator, as
this park belonged to all the people of the United
States to defend its integrity and to keep it for
the purposes for which it was originally designed.
Since Senators have come from those states, who,
of course, must be supposed to know more about
that park than those of us who live at distance,
and since they have manifested a disposition to
mutilate it, I must confess that my interest in it
has rather flopped and I feel very much disposed,
in plain language, to wash my hands of the whole
business. If the constituencies who are more
benefited than any others, can possibly be in the
park, are willing to see it cut off, the best disposi-
tion of the matter would be to turn it over to the
public, let the full greed and avarice of the
country have their scope, let the geysers be divided
out and taken for the purpose of washing clothes,
let the water of that splendid waterfall in the
Yellowstone River be used to turn machinery, let

50 SENATOR VEST

the timber be cut off; in other words, destroy the
park, and make it a sacrifice to the greed of this
advanced age in which we live."

Senator Vest visited the park in all five times
and he impressed upon his colleagues that he
came to be interested in the reservation by acci-
dent and that he felt it his duty to resist what he
considered to be deadly attacks from time to time
upon the integrity of this reservation, and he cited
the fact that Congress, long before he came into
that body, had set aside thirty-three hundred
square feet for a reservation in the Rocky Moun-
tains as a National Park. The Senator main-
tained that in 1879 soon after he entered the
Senate, it was intended to turn the reservation
into a cattle ranch, and he felt it was his duty to
resist that attempt and he was successful in his
resistance.

Senator Vest claimed that after that time, at-
tempts were made at every session to run a rail-
road into the park, subordinate all its purposes as
a park and all its attractiveness as a place with
natural scenery and objects of curiosity, to com-
mercial and mercenary purposes.

These schemes of fixing the boundaries of the
park as argued in the Senate on various occasions
would have cut off all that part of the park north
of the Yellowstone River, according to Senator
Vest. The plan so vigorously opposed by the Mis-
souri Senator finally went off on a point of order.

Senator Vest in this controversy declared he
had been maligned and slandered and that there
had been imputed to him all sorts of sinister de-

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 51

sires, and his contention freely expressed was that
if a railroad was put through the reservation
every particle of timber on the north side would
be burned off, and that it would be taken upon
one pretext or another and destroyed by forest
fires generated by sparks from locomotives.

Opponents to the plan of railroads in the park
argued with vigor that there were no private
interests on the borders of the reservation whose
development was jeopardized by the declination
of the government to give access to them by a rail-
road line in the park so far as the enjoyment of
tourists was concerned, and that a line along the
southern border would fill the bill just as well, and
serve the adjacent country better, and further
that there was no occasion to build an electric line
in the reservation and that nearly all the people
who visited the section were against it.

Mr. Vest further evidenced his great interest
in the park by securing the passage of an amend-
ment which carried with it a salary of $2000.00
annually to the superintendent of the park and
$900.00 annually to ten assistants, these officials
to be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior
and live in the park, their duty being to protect
the game, timber, and objects of interest. Mr.
Vest presented this amendment for the reason
that prior to this time, the superintendent of the
park was only there a few months in the year and
that while he was away an immense amount of
game was killed and geysers had been destroyed.

These geysers are the most wonderful, the most
singular of all the productions of nature on this

52 SENATOR VEST

continent, have their eruptions at regular inter-
vals of half an hour, an hour, or an hour and a
half, declared the Senator.

He opposed a move to allow the Secretary of
the Interior to lease small portions of the park,
not exceeding eighty acres in each tract on which
hotels could be erected for a period not exceeding
ten years.

Mr. Vest contended that the leasing of the
tracts should be limited in area to twenty acres each,
holding that the principle upon which the park
should be managed was that there should be com-
petition and that no one company should have a
monopoly of the view, of the ground, of the tim-
ber, of the water, of anything in the park. By
the time the Missouri Senator had got through
with the proposition, the Senate had voted to
limit the area of the tracts leased to ten acres.

In 1887 Mr. Vest was directly responsible for
increasing the yearly appropriation made for the
park from $20,000.00 to $40,000.00 and he de-
clared at this time that "It is the most wonderful
region upon this continent. That it must be under-
stood that this enormous extent of country, nearly
thirty-four hundred square miles, is utterly useless
except for the purposes of a park. Upon the south
it is a volcanic country covered everywhere with
lava deposits. There are no minerals there, no
agricultural resource, no grazing lands, simply fit
for the purpose of a park, and nothing else."

This great National Park at the present time
is approximately sixty-two miles long and fifty-
four miles wide, an area of thirty-three hundred

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 53

forty-eight square miles and is under the control
of the National Park service of the Interior
Department. It is without doubt the best known
of any National Park and its geysers are famous
the world over. Most of the park, as is well
known, is in northwestern Wyoming, encroaching
to a small extent upon Montana and Idaho. The
entire area is volcanic.

Trout fishermen know what trout fishing in
Yellowstone waters is, and Senator Vest upon his
visit there with President Arthur in 1883 had a
good taste of real trout fishing. All three of the
great water sheds in the park are the mecca of
trout fishermen, Yellowstone Lake, being the
home of the large trout, and the Yellowstone
River furnish good catches to the trout enthu-
siasts. Experts declare that waters as remote as
possible should always be sought as the more ac-
cessible streams are fished so much by the many
thousands of visitors that the trout become wary.

The late Missouri Senator, had he lived, would
have noted the fact of the great number of
motorists who annuallly visit the big reservation
in their own cars. The motorization of the park,
now complete, gives the tourist a chance to pass
a far greater proportion of his time in sight-see-
ing, the National Park service having developed
the trail system rapidly, some hundreds of miles
of good trails being now available for the horse-
back rider and hiker.

Three months, from June 19 to September 19,
comprise the tourist season at the park. The
period between June 1 and 19 and September 19

54 SENATOR VEST

and October 15, admittance is only to those who
are equipped to camp along the roads or trails.

It is indeed to the everlasting fame of Mr.
Vest, the man who fought against encroachments
at the reservation, that today over three thou-
sand square miles of mountains and valleys re-
main almost as nature made them, no tree has
been chopped down except when necessary for
road or camp. Most of the visitors keep to the
beaten road and the wild animals seem to appre-
ciate the fact that they mean them no harm.

Twenty years following the visit of President
Arthur to the park, occurred the second visit of a
President of the United States to this great reser-
vation. Theodore Roosevelt was the second
President to make the trip, arriving at the park,
April 8, accompanied by John Burroughs, the
famous naturalist, and they remained there six-
teen days. Mr. Roosevelt passed a week in camp
near Yancey's, and traveled considerably by
horseback, this part of the visit giving the Presi-
dent a great opportunity to look into the question
of game preservation. On his last day at the
park, Mr. Roosevelt assisted, April 24, in laying
the cornerstone of the new entrance gate at
Gardiner, and after the exercises he delivered an
address on the park to about three thousand
people.

In the vigorous work of the earlier years of
the park when the fight to get railroads across it
was on, three men fought for the park on every
occasion and against cutting it up with railroad
lines. These men were the late Senator Vest, the

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 55

late William Hallett Phillips and George Bird
Grinnell, who later was widely known as the editor
of Forest and Stream. Mr. Vest was a vigorous
fighter in the Senate for what he believed to be
the right, and there were few Senators there who
could present any proposition in as clear a light.
He entered into the controversy over the park
with great fervor and was ever watchful of any
attempt by the railroads to encroach upon its
territory.

George Bird Grinnell also figured as one of the
civil assistants to Captain William Ludlow of the
corps of engineers when the latter in 1875 made
a reconnoissance from Carroll Mount on the Mis-
souri River to the Yellowstone Park and return.
He obtained at that time a very accurate measure-
ment of the height of the Yellowstone Falls and
his report is a very able short description of the
park.

Mr. Vest could scarcely have conceived at the
close of his senatorial career in 1903, that in a
little over twenty years later, the park he did so
much to establish would be visited by nearly 150,-
000 people in a single year. But such is the fact,
the records for 1924 showing that 144,158
visitors visited the reservation in that year, of
which 100,186 came in 30,689 autos. In 1923
there were 138,352 visitors, of whom 91,224
came in 27,359 autos. These visitors represented
every state in the Union as well as Alaska,
Hawaii, the Canal Zone, the Philippines and
twenty-three foreign countries. The estimate of
the number of autoists camping out in the public

56 SENATOR VEST

grounds in the park is placed at 85,000. As the
park season comprises only the period between
June 20 and September 20, these figures show a
great gathering of people in a few months.

Senator Vest clearly saw years ago that to ex-
clude railroads from the park was a long way
toward retaining the reservation in its original
condition. The question was once put to a vote of
tourists and the vote was ninety-five per cent, in
favor of the complete exclusion of every form of
railroad.

Today there is in the park the so-called canyon
auto camp, covering a flat of ground about thirty
acres in extent along the main road from Yellow-
stone Lake to Tower Falls, the ground being level
but for a small area, the remainder having a slope
and the location is in many ways ideal. The work
of Mr. Vest and the other friends of this great
reservation results today in one of the most per-
fect natural rendezvous for automobile tourists in
the world.

Unquestionably it could have had no more
astute friend in the Senate than was Mr. Vest.
Absolutely fearless and with a thorough knowl-
edge of the subject, he fought hard to retain the
reservation in its original condition. And the pro-
moters of the plans to secure rights of way for
railroads were not long in finding out that in the
United States Senate the Senator from Missouri
was always on the job.

This was still further evidenced by his bill in
the Senate in 1890 which passed that body and
provided that the Secretary of the Interior and

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 57

the Postmaster-General should select a suitable
site at Mammoth Hot Springs in the Yellowstone
National Park and cause to be erected thereon a
suitable building for the use and accommodation
of the post office at that place, the buildings not
to exceed in cost $10,000. and the plans and
specifications to be furnished by the supervising
architect of the Treasury and be approved by the
Secretary of the Interior and the Postmaster-
General before the work should be begun. The
site selected was to leave the building unexposed
to danger by fire by an open space of at least one
hundred feet.

In explanation of his bill, the Senator at that
time declared it was no town at all, but simply a
post office at the Springs, and that a large amount
of mail was received there during the summer
months by tourists, and no building there was suit-
able for a post office. It transpired that there had
been a postmaster there for some years previous,
the business being conducted in a frame shanty
where there was no security from fire and no
accommodations.

Mammoth Hot Springs, as is well known, is the
point in the park where later on a big transforma-
tion of natural conditions by the work of men has
been allowed. Various buildings have been erected
there, a hotel, the weather bureau building and
the office of the United States Commissioner. Also
garrison buildings were provided.

All through Senator Vest's long career in the
Senate, anything pertaining to the reservation was
sure to receive the fullest consideration from him.

58 SENATOR VEST

He was wont to say that he knew the audience
before which he stood and the age in which he
lived. He appealed to the Senators whose states
were upon the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to
resist attempts to fix the boundaries of the park
to permit railroads, and his efforts were invariably
successful.

Mr. Vest argued that his interest and that of
these Senators were directed to preserving the
growth of timber and the grasses and ferns which
grew upon the sides of the mountains along the
great tributary of the Missouri River, the Yel-
lowstone. He declared that millions of dollars
were being expended to prevent the floods which
rush down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers
and which destroyed farms and plantations. And
that if the timber on the headwaters of the Mis-
souri River should be destroyed, the immense fall
of water, the rainfall which comes but once in ten
or twelve months, would rush down a bare and
exposed declivity upon each side of these waters,
and would then sweep in resistless volume through
the state of Missouri and all the states contiguous
upon the Missouri and Mississippi rivers until
they reached the Gulf, and that taking away the
ferns and vegetables upon the banks of these
streams would increase the floods largely when
they reached the lower regions.

At the close of one warm debate in the Senate
on this question Mr. Vest exclaimed:

"I have no earthly interest in the matter except
to protect this park. If ever mortal man stood

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 59

here utterly disinterested in this subject, I stand
in that condition tonight."

Among the outstanding utterances of Senator
Vest were his remarks to his fellow Senators in
1883, four years after his entrance to that body,
which may be cited in closing.

The subject for discussion at that time, was
the pension bill for the Union soldiers, and Mr.
Vest declared that in the four years he had voted
for every pension bill that had come before the
body. He asserted that if the Confederacy had
won, to which he was devoted body 'and soul from
the beginning to the end of the conflict, he would
have voted the last dollar of money, and the last
acre of land within its limits to have paid the
maimed, wounded and disabled soldiers of the
Confederate Army and that the people of the
United States to whom Providence gave triumph
in the conflict, have the same right, and not only
the same right but the same duty imposed upon
them.

There can be but little doubt that George G.
Vest from the time he made his famous speech for
the dog, nearly sixty years ago, and all through
his service in the Senate, was one of the most pic-
turesque figures in public life. A man of strong
likes and dislikes, fearless and bold, his career
was one of the most interesting during the half
century. Associated with such mental giants as
Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, Allison, Teller,
the interest of the Missouri statesman in the pub-
lic questions of the day was unflagging and broad-
minded. Whether the matter to be considered

60 SENATOR VEST

was of local interest to the people of St. Louis or
of national importance, it received the same care-
ful attention, and a lengthy consideration of the
activities of the men who were in public life dur-
ing Mr. Vest's life, fail to disclose any who were
more active than he, or whose interests were more
diversified.

It must be admitted beyond question that his
splendid work for the Yellowstone National Park
was the outstanding feature of his entire public
career, and that his speech for the dog, in itself,
was one of the most touching appeals in all
history, and that as the years roll on, its pathos,
its human interest, its statement of fact, will make
a greater impression than ever.

When Senator Vest's long public service was
nearing its end, he expressed himself in the Sen-
ate in 1902 in this language:

"My public career will end in a very few
months and I had fondly expected after the
Spanish War that the men of the North and of
the South who stood like brothers together
against a foreign foe, would continue to stand like
brothers in this time of peace. The people of the
South are sincere mourners at the graves of Lin-
coln, Grant, and McKinley, and no more honest
tears were ever shed than those dropped upon the
bier of our last President, from the eyes of men
who had faced in battle the soldiers of the North
during four long years. People of the North
should remember that the South too has produced
great and good and patriotic leaders.

"They should remember that Washington,

CHAMPION OF THE DOG 61

Jefferson, Robert E. Lee were slave-holders and
differed widely upon that question with their
brothers in the northern states. I shall never cease
to feel kindly toward the present occupant of the
White House, (Roosevelt) for what he said in
the broad spirit of statesmanship and as a his-
torian in his life of Thomas H. Benton, in regard
to Robert E. Lee. He said that Robert E. Lee
was by far the greatest general that ever came
from the English speaking races.

"I hope I may be pardoned if I speak briefly
of Wade Hampton, whose memory will live for
centuries to come among the people not only of
the South but of the whole country. I knew him
well and loved him sincerely. He was the highest
type of a Christian gentleman, patient, brave,
honest and unselfish. He was not depressed by
adversity or unduly elated by prosperity. Having
lost all except life and honor, he bowed submis-
sively to the result of a great war, in which he
shared the fortunes of his people."

The late Henry Cabot Lodge, long a Senator
from Massachusetts, and who was one of the most
brilliant minds in the country, spoke these words
of Senator Vest's remarks on President Roose-
velt's estimate of Lee, and Vest's regard for Gen-
eral Wade Hampton:

u And certainly I think every one must share
with me in the feeling of deep emotion with which
we have this morning listened to his eloquence,
always beautiful and impressive, but never more
so than on this occasion."

In closing, it is opportune to recall once more

62 SENATOR VEST

that the Missouri Senator on many occasions dur-
ing his long public life, showed his independent
thought, an instance being his opposition to the
purchase by the Government of a sword once
owned by General Washington for the sum of
$20,000. It was proposed to purchase the sword
from Miss Virginia Tayloe Lewis, a relative of
Washington, which sword was bequeathed to her
in the will of the first President of the United
States.

Mr. Vest claimed that such swords had no com-
mercial value, and that the sword in question was
not known to have been used by Washington in
action. The Senator maintained that he had dis-
tinctly said that he would be willing to go to any
reasonable extent to evidence his veneration and
that of the people he represented for the memory
of Washington, and that he had simply said the
price of the sword was enormous.

The two questions which occupied the attention
of Mr. Vest in 1903 in the closing days of his
senatorial career were the Indian appropriation
bill and the coal famine. The Senator declared
with force that it was astonishing how little atten-
tion was paid to any right constitutional or other-
wise of the Indians.

Mr. Roosevelt, in his life of Thomas H. Ben-
ton, a wonderfully interesting book, according to
Mr. Vest, said the North American Indians had
been treated with great justice and clemency by
the superior race, our race, and the Missouri Sen-
ator said, "I do not agree with President Roose-

iCHAMPION OF THE DOG 63

velt. I think they have been shamefully robbed,"
and continuing he said:

"I happened once to be a member of the Com-
mittee on Indian Affairs of the Senate and I was
assigned to a sub-committee to visit the Indian
schools of Wyoming and Montana. I went to
every Indian school whether under the control of
the government or under the Jesuits and others.
I think I have said and I repeat I never saw a
single government day school that was worth one
cent to the Indians or did anything to advance
them toward Christianity and civilization. I re-
member now perfectly and I believe I have stated
before the visit I made to Fort Shaw in Montana.
There were Crow, Blackfeet and some Turtle
Mountain Indians some forty miles distant. It
was surrounded by a stockade. I stayed there two
days and found eight hundred and ninety odd
children enrolled where there had not been ten in
attendance at the school at any one day unless it
was ration day, when meat was distributed among
them. The agent was a superannuated clergyman
from Rhode Island. There were two teachers of
this school who were his daughters, and they ad-
mitted as I found out personally on examination
that these Indian children were taught nothing,
and yet $2800. was paid out of the Treasury of
the United States to these teachers and reports
are made out at every session of Congress in
behalf of day schools."

In the great coal famine of 1903 Mr. Vest was
to the front, presenting a resolution in the Senate
that the tariff duty be removed from hard coal.

64 SENATOR VEST

This resolution got a hard batting, but the Mis-
sourian was on his mettle and loudly expressed the
opinion that the country was not on the verge of
a crisis in regard to the coal question but was in it.

Women and children were freezing to death
and the whole country was shocked within a
period of ten days by the statement that a poor
woman and her child had frozen to death in a
tenement house in New York, in the midst of
wealth and luxury, was cited by Mr. Vest in his
public utterances on the coal famine ; also that
under the shadow of the Capitol at Washington
a child of eleven was frozen to death while luxuri-
ous vehicles were rolling across its asphalt streets,
and people were preparing for the festivities of
Christmas.

Mr. Vest spoke as a consumer and representing
consumers, and claimed his only solicitude was
how to find a remedy for what he characterized
as a disgraceful, outrageous condition of affairs.

"I know/' said he, u that the consumers are be-
ing plundered day by day and hour by hour."

The Senator closed his argument by stating
that when he concluded to buy coke in Washing-
ton, he was told the price was sixteen dollars a
ton when the normal price of coke was about three
dollars per ton.

36269

c

5 <

2 rn

3>