Like a Cowboy: Imagery in Politics, Prose and Reality - Virtual Exhibit images

Like a Cowboy: Imagery in Politics, Prose and Reality

Virtual Exhibit Image Pages

Label Text Background Color Key

images, Page 1
Images, Page 2
Images, Page 3
Images, Page 4
Images, Page 5

Historical, journalists, description

Political

Poetry, literature

	Excerpt from D. J. O'Malley's (1868-1943) poem, "After the Roundup (When the Work's All Done This Fall)" That very night this cowboy went on guard; The night it was dark and 'twas storming very hard. The cattle got frightened and rushed in mad stampede, He tried to check them, riding at full speed; Riding in the darkness loud he did shout, Doing his utmost to turn the herd about. His saddle horse stumbled and on him did fall; He'll not see his mother when the work's done this fall. They picked him up gently and laid him on a bed; The poor boy was mangled, they thought he was dead. He opened up his blue eyes and gazed all around; Then motioned his comrades to sit near him on the ground: "Send her the wages I have earned. Boys, I'm afraid that my last steer I've turned. I'm going to a new range, I hear the Master call. I'll not see my mother when the work's done this fall. Bill, take my saddle; George, take my bed; Fred, take my pistol after I am dead. Think of me kindly when on them you look--" His voice then grew fainter, with anguish he shook. His friends gathered closer and on them he gazed. His breath coming fainter, his eyes growing glazed. He uttered a few words, heard by them all: "I'll see my mother when the work's done this fall."
Cabinet photograph Group of mounted young cowboys in their Sunday best Photographer unknown, ca. 1890 2004.037.1 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

In her March 9, 2003 New York Times column, "The Xanax Cowboy," Maureen Dowd writes, "You might sum up the president's call to war Thursday night as ‘Message: I scare.' As he rolls up to America's first pre-emptive invasion, bouncing from motive to motive, Mr. Bush is trying to sound rational, not rash. Determined not to be petulant, he seemed tranquilized. But the Xanax cowboy made it clear that Saddam is going to pay for 9/11. Even if the fiendish Iraqi dictator was not involved with Al Qaeda, he has supported ‘Al Qaeda-type organizations,' as the president fudged, or ‘Al Qaeda types' or ‘a terrorist network like Al Qaeda.' We are scared of the world now, and the world is scared of us. (It's really scary to think we are even scaring Russia and China.) Bush officials believe that making the world more scared of us is the best way to make us safer and less scared. So they want a spectacular show of American invincibility to make the wicked and the wayward think twice before crossing us."
	Cabinet photograph Wearing wooly chaps, an unidentified cowboy shaves near a wagon Photographer unknown, ca. 1910 2004.066 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	An article entitled "So Many Cowboys... So Little Rope" from At the Back Fence posted on www.likesbooks.com, Issue #93, April 15, 2000 reads in part: "The link between our contemporary version of the romanticized cowboy and the chivalrous knights of old is clear. Gayle Wilson, creator of the Intrigue Home to Texas miniseries, calls her cowboy heroes ‘white knights,' continuing, 'They combine in our minds the romantic elements of the loner, the vagabond knight, and even the conqueror.' Sheryl Lynn, another Intrigue author, also cites this connection: 'Cowboys are modern-day knights, bound to chivalry and the pursuit of justice. Mysterious because what they do is accomplished alone. Loners who need a good woman to still their roamin' feet.' Compare the feudal rules of chivalry to the cowboy living by his Code of the West. Contrast the knight in shining armor astride a fiery charger with the mounted cowboy in his hat, chaps, gloves and spurs. Coincidence? I think not."
Tintype Pair of ranch hands sharing a studio chair Photographer unknown, ca. 1880 2004.070 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

Will James in his 1925 book, Cowboys North and South, states that a real cow-horse did nothing but cow work. "He never was rode out on circle or straight riding and never was used anywheres outside of on the cutting grounds. All the action, strength, endurance, and intelligence that pony has was called for there, and the horse that could do that work and do it well was worth near his weight in gold to the country...he's the kind what'll work with the man, he's got to be able to see what should be done and do it without waiting for the feel of the rein, for sometimes things are done so quickly in working a herd or cutting out a critter that the human eye or hand may be too slow, and that's where the instinct of the cow-horse comes in, to pick up the slack. He's got brains enough to know what the cowboy wants done, and he goes ahead and does it."
	Stereograph Thrown! Cowboy and Horse holding a lassoed cow, Kansas Keystone View Company, Meadville, Pennsylvania, 1934 [ca. 1890] 2004.074 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	Found at www.holidayness.com, Holiday Dmitri in the abstract to her masters thesis, "Frontier Justice: Cowboy Ethics and the Bush Doctrine of Preemption," August 2003, writes, "My thesis offers an analysis of how the Bush Doctrine applies 'cowboy ethics' to justify U.S. military intervention. Cowboy ethics are comprised of five similar qualities: 1) holding a sense of moral providence; 2) viewing the world in terms of a good/evil dichotomy; 3) a belief in the right to anticipatory self-defense; 4) a willingness to act alone; and 5) a sense of duty to defend the weak. My principal argument is that President Bush cultivates cowboy ethics as a means to pronounce and justify America's foreign policy actions as done for moral good rather than for imperialistic purposes. The Bush Doctrine of Preemption dictates that America should not wait to be attacked, but move proactively to disrupt and defeat global outlaws - an ideology congruent with cowboy ethics."
Photochrom print Colorado, The Round Up ‘Grub Pile' Detroit Photographic Company, Detroit, Michigan, ca. 1890 2004.085 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

William Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in a February 24, 2002 article entitled "A Reagan Echo" posted on www.aei.org writes, "To the allies, Bush's words [axis of evil] sounded like cowboy diplomacy. With good reason. A week after Sept. 11, Bush startled the world when he said about Osama bin Laden: 'There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.' On Feb. 8, Bush addressed a roomful of cowboys at the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. meeting in Denver. The president said to a forest of 10-gallon hats, 'Either you're with us, or you're against us.' On his way to the Far East last weekend, he told U.S. troops in Alaska, 'I view this current conflict as either us versus them [or] evil versus good. And there is no in between.' It's the black hats and the white hats--just like in the cowboy movies."
	Cabinet photograph Two unidentified cowboys in studio with sleeping dog Bertram C. Towne, Portland, Oregon, ca. 1889 2004.090 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	"Startin' Out," a poem by Bruce Kiskaddon (1878-1950) When you have to start out on a cold winter day, The wind blowin' cold and the sky is dull gray. You blow on the bit till you take out the frost, Then you put on the bridle and saddle yore hoss. He squats and he shivvers. He blows through his nose. The blanket is stiff for the sweat is shore froze. Then you pick up yore saddle and swing it up high, Till the stirrups and cinches and latigoes fly. The pony he flinches and draws down his rump. There's a chance he might kick, and he's likely to jump. He rolls his eye at you and shivvers like jelly When you pull that old frozen cinch up on his belly. It is cold on his back and yore freezin' yore feet, And you'll likely find out when you light on yore seat, That you ain't got no tropical place fer to set. It is likely the saddle aint none overhet. But a cow boy don't pay no attention to weather. He gits out of his bed and gits into the leather. In the winter it's mighty onpleasant to ride, But that's jest the time when he's needed outside.
Cabinet photograph Three Oregon cowboys on horseback after a snowstorm Frank M. Manning, Portland, Oregon, ca. 1878 2004.121 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

A reporter wrote in an article entitled, "The Cow-Boys of the Western Plains and Their Horses," appearing in the October 3, 1882 Cheyenne Daily Leader, "As you mingle with these cowboys, you find in them a strange mixture of good nature and recklessness. You are as safe with them on the plains as with any class of men, so long as you do not impose upon them. They will even deny themselves for your comfort, and imperil their lives for your safety. But impose upon them, or arouse their ire, and your life is of no more value in their esteem than that of a coyote. Morally, as a class, they are foulmouthed, blasphemous, drunken, lecherous, utterly corrupt. Usually harmless on the plains when sober, they are dreaded in towns, for then liquor has the ascendency over them. They are also as improvident as the veriest ‘Jack' of the sea..."
Clifford P. Westermeier in his 1955 book, Trailing the Cowboy, writes, "During the peak of the range cattle industry, in the middle of the eighties [1880s], the cattlemen's frontier embraced an area of some 13,500,000 square miles and totaled almost 44 per cent of the United States."	Cabinet photograph Wyoming cattle drive Baker & Johnston, Evanston, Wyoming, ca. 1885 2004.126 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	John Potter in his article, "Bush gives cowboys bad image," writing for the billingsgazette.com on March 8, 2003 says that he always wanted to be cowboy when he was a kid and that many American diplomats refer to President Bush as a cowboy. "Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., agrees, saying that the U.S. must not 'act like a unilateral cowboy' (which, I guess, is a cowboy who only uses one latigo [a long leather strap used to fasten a saddle on a horse]). All of this cowboy talk has spurred my sense of fairness into a gallop. Are we being fair to our actual, authentic lil' boot-scootin', rope-totin', snuff-dippin', doggie-wrasslin' partners by labeling Bush a 'cowboy'?"
Cabinet photograph Wyoming cowboy on horseback with gauntlets, wooly chaps and full tapaderos Photographer unknown, ca. 1920 2004.136 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center	Potter quotes Deanna Duke Arbuckle from her column in The Oregonian newspaper, that 'this president is no cowboy.' "Arbuckle, who is married to an actual retired cowpuncher..., writes that, a real cowboy 'tends to his own herd and his own land. He mends his own fences. He never intrudes on his neighbor without an invitation. He makes a good neighbor...he minds his own business and wouldn't tell the people next door how to live.'"

Posted on American Cowboy Magazine's why.cowboy.com, A. Todd Black wrote, "The cowboy is the spirit of America. He (or she) is the physical embodiment of all that is great about our country. He is the incarnation of the ideals that make our nation the envy of the world. He is a symbol of character, truth and strength. He is the culmination of countless countries, races and cultures. He comes in every size, shape and color. Some are fortunate to be born into the cowboy culture and others have learned that 'it's never too late to become a cowboy'...The United States and our President are being criticized for their "cowboy" attitude and actions in standing up for our ideals and national interests because moral fortitude is threatening to those that lack it. I agree with our detractors in their assessment of our national character, and it is our 'cowboy' spirit that makes this country great."
From the March 15, 1889 issue of the Trinidad Weekly News reads: "A humorous cow puncher named Todd lassoed Mr. Bowring, a prominent citizen of Ponca, whom he imagined had insulted him, and dragged him several hundred yards as rapidly as his horse could run. The lariat was finally caught by friends of Bowring and cut, not, however, until the latter was badly bruised."	Tissue stereograph Trailing through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, Arizona, U.S.A. American Stereoscopic Company, New York, New York, 1903 2004.156 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center