Cowboy Life: Reconstructing an American Myth

National Live Stock Association "No class of men ever was so unfaithfully represented"

National Live Stock Association "No class of men ever was so unfaithfully represented" 1905 If an "official" view of the cowboy exists, it is to be found in the selection tbat follows, taken from Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry of the United States. The book, edited by James W. Freeman , was prepared for the membership of the National Live Stock Association. Drawing upon the works of Emerson Hough, Theodore Roosevelt, and Andy Adams, it argues that the cowboy has generally been misunderstood and describes a life on the range in which only the fittest survived. Considering its publication date and the purpose to which it was put, the book must be viewed as basically nostalgic and essentially self-serving. It preserves what cattlemen thought worth preserving. One of the groups of temporary "statuary" with which the great Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904 was embellished represented four yelling cowboys mounted on galloping "cowhorses " and firing their revolvers in the air-"shooting up the town." No doubt a large majority of the visitors to that incomparable exposition who saw this group regarded it as being truly typical in its representation of the cowboy of the old cattle-trails and of the bygone days of the open range. It would seem that no class of men ever was so unfaithfully represented, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and in conFrom James W. Freeman (ed.). Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry of the United States (Denver, National Live Stock Historical Association. 19°5). I, 548-64· COWBOY LIFE sequence of this so wrongfully understood and unfairly judged by the people generally, as that of the old-time cowboys has been; and it is to be regretted that this class of western pioneers was figured at this great Exposition in a form so well calculated to lend support to and to perpetuate the mistaken common notions that the general public has concerning these men. Of the typical cowboy Mr. Emerson Hough, in his most interesting book, "The Story of the Cowboy," says: "What was really the life of this child of the wild region of America, and what were the conditions of the life that bore him can never be fully known by those who have not seen the West with wide eyes. Those who did not, but who looked superficially and superciliously, remembering only their own surroundings, and forgetting that in the eye of Nature one creature is as good as another if only it prevail where it stands, were content with distorted views of that which they saw about them. Having no perspective in their souls, how could they find it in their eyes? They saw color but not form in these wild men of the wild country. They saw traits but did not see the character beneath them. Seeking to tell of that which they had not seen, they became inaccurate and unjust. Dallying with the pleasant sensation of exciting themes, they became grotesque instead of strong in their handling of them. "The cowboy was Simply a part of the West. He who did not understand the one could never understand the other. Never was any character more misunderstood than he; and so thorough was his misrepresentation that part of the public even to-day will have no other way of looking at him. They see the wide hat and not the honest face beneath it. They remember the wild momentary freaks of man, but forget his lifetime of hard work and patient faithfulness. They insist upon the distorted mask and ask not for the soul beneath it. If we care truly to see the cowboy as he was, and seek to give our wish the dignity of a real purpose, the first intention should be to study the cowboy in connection with his surroundings. Then perhaps we may not fail in our purpose, but come near to seeing him as he actually was, the product of primitive, chaotic, elemental forces, rough, barbarous, and strong. Then we shall love him because at heart each of us is a barbarian, too, and longing for that past the ictus of whose heredity we can never eliminate from out our blood. Then 16z Cowboys posing after supper. The fourth man from the left is a Negro. The photographic record suggests that Negro cowboys may not have been as prevalent as some historians have indicated. • A large group...