>> the problem is that armed forces were being made weaker and weaker. i don't think we should be the policeman of the continent, but you don't have diplomacy unless you have military force. that is what we have got to understand with china and russia. the understand force. they don't understand words. they'll listen to words. >> we will have to leave it there. i want to thank my panel. [applause] thank you so much. thank you. would also like to thank our audience for your thoughtful questions and we would like to thank you for your thoughtful answers. we like to extend a big debt of gratitude to the national world war i team and liberty memorial for hosting us here. to history channel and to the national world war i commission for making this event possible. thank you so much for joining us.

>> you're watching american history tv. >> we are joining our charter cable partners to showcase the history of casper, wyoming. to learn more about the cities on our 2014 tour, visit c-span.org/localcontent. this american history tv on c-span three. we continue with our look at the history of casper. this is american history tv on c-span3. the johnson county war was one of the central stories of wyoming foundation. over aa struggle protracted time that came to a head in 1982 when -- between

large cattle interests that come into the state a little earlier in the 1880's, and small ranchers like the folks who would have lived in a house like this. the reason the struggle came about is at all ranching in in centralthat time, and northern wyoming, was conducted with a large amount of the federal public domain as the grazing land that was used for it. what it really matter to is a struggle over who controls grazing rights on the federal domain. almost all ranching in wyoming comes about through the homestead act, the original homestead act passed during the civil war. the practice became early was a large interest to divide the land that they were grazing into grazing districts and ultimately they formed the wyoming stop growers association which is still in existence.

in therolled the roundup grazing districts in southern montana and part of north dakota. >> they came to see the grazing lands that they controlled from their headquarters as being theirs. they did not own it, so it is more homesteaders came in and as their own cowboys began to acquire livestock, some cowboys shipped part of their pay in livestock, they would have smaller homesteads within the grazing lands controlled by the larger ones. that ultimately led to a competition between the two groups for space.

cap a ranching in central the onlyrovided really economic activity at any time -- of any kind well into the late 1890's. a town like casper was really in ranching country. cattle was everything in the economy at that time. is the theft of cattle. in an area like this, the way that was the way that was police was actually largely private. the registration came into the wyoming stock owners association . the stock growers association had the take is that hard to police the theft of cattle to try and prevent it. the theft of cattle is simply larceny, so theoretically what happened is that the perpetrators were arrested and

taken to the county courthouse and given a speedy trial. as a practical matter the distances involved often ended in death. if a person was found rustling cattle and caught they could the stocks to be coming back in. it sounds barbaric, but you realize how far out you were at any one time, bringing a person it is not an easy thing to do and people often just didn't do it. there has been a lot of dissatisfaction amongst the big interest in central wyoming. it began the process of some assassinations in the southern johnson county area where someone was taking the law into their own hands and there's a lot of talk about who was responsible for that an who was a witness to it. in the winter of 1891 and 1892,

interest from the neighboring began to propose a solution, what they are viewed as a final solution to this. support of thehe larger interest in the stock growers association. placef the planning took in the cheyenne club, which was a club that large cattle interests frequented in cheyenne. they met and decided that what they would do, they would fund and provide a force for an invasion. they went about doing that by providing for arms and ammunition that were brought into cheyenne, providing for horses through western union, and then they went on to texas and recruited a party of men to come up and act as the invading army.

those men were recruited, of course, for their skills not a negotiation but for other things. they were given a cover. they were actually told that they were being hired to go in and arrest and deal with russell -- wrestlers. they actually hired a chartered train, brought the men that from denver into texas and into cheyenne and intertech -- and into casper and disembarked them at night. the news seized to be a secret almost immediately, and the cheyenne newspapers, which were sympathetic to large cattle interests, began to report on it almost immediately. in fact, the men had hardly gotten off the train before the news hit. that began to form the initial thought that there an invading

force in the county, and they are going to do something. they were right. the invading force had a list of 70 men who were to be addressed by the party. 70 men were expected to lose their lives in the operation if it was fully successful. one individual who would have undoubtedly known that he would've been subject of an expedition like this was nate champion who did lose his life in the invasion. that casey ranch is a ranch that is in southern johnson county. it is still there. that was the location that nate champion and some of his fellows were at as this expedition moved up from casper on their trip north. they were attacked in the early morning hours in an event that

resulted in a full day's time being lost while the expedition attempted to get principally champion. they did in the end. the fact that the invaders stopped at the kc did a couple of things. it took him out of expedition that was already desperately behind in schedule and related even further. it took them an entire day to deal with basically two men holed up in a cabin, which was an extraordinary delay. on top of that comic began to so some dissension in the ranks. it did suggest the men that came up from texas that not everything was completely on the up and up with what they were doing. faced with delays, faced with a problem that they now had a pretty fatigued set of forces

and whatnot, they went from there to the ta ranch. when they were at the ta ranch, they stopped it there in order to get a little rest and read provision -- reprovision. they were met by a large party of individuals who had come down from buffalo, and basically what johnson county had done was form a posse to react to what was going on, and they put them under siege. prior to the invasion, governor barbour who had also been informed of the invasion and basically was in on the plans had issued an order to the county sheriffs that the wyoming state militia could only be called out by the governor. he sent a telegraph himself, but the telegraph was to president benjamin harrison. it just said a state of insurrection existed in johnson county. he didn't explain how the insurrection had come about and who was in on it, but he asked

for the army to be deployed from fort mckinney, which is outside of buffalo. he was worried at that point that this was going to become not only a colossal scandal, and there is almost no hope at that point that it wasn't going to become a colossal scandal, but that what was going to occur was that the law enforcement authorities in johnson county were actually going to override and storm these forces and probably kill them. that really wasn't the expressed intent of the individuals in johnson county, but it wasn't an unrealistic fear that a lot of these guys who are his political allies, quite a few of them had been signatories to the constitution of the state, which was only a couple of years old, were going to die as a result of this event. she was at that point willing to do whatever was necessary to get

some intervention and to keep it from getting it worse than it already was. politically, what happened was there was a brief time in wyoming when the political fortune of various parties really were impacted by the cattle war. wyoming in this time was really a republican state. all of the political rate -- leadership was princely republican. after the cattle war, the republican party a pretty significant blow at first. they were so heavily implicated in what had occurred. it did result in governor barbour's political downfall. governor osborne, a democrat, came in. barbour actually refused to surrender office in an event that is almost surreal.

osborn basically had to enter through the window because barbour wouldn't leave. we had a real peculiar time when this occurred. over a year, this was a huge political issue. at the end of the year, those who were arrested and thought they were going to stand trial really did not. there was a lot of early courtroom maneuvering. the county had to pay to house prisoners, even if they were outside the county. johnson county just couldn't afford it. at the end of the year or so, they were let go. the net impact of the cattle wars is interesting in that when you look at it, it would have appeared that the small cattlemen prevailed. they did defend themselves.

then it would have appeared that the large cattlemen weathered the storm. what it did do, it taught them that opposing the small homestead interests or small cattle interests was a lost cause. there was actually more 20th-century homesteading in wyoming then there was 19th-century. homesteading continue to go on. big cattle operations inevitably became much smaller. a few of the ranches that were involved in this story actually still exists and still are around. they survived all of that time. >> throughout the weekend,

american history tv is featuring casper, wyoming. our team recently traveled there to learn about its rich history. learn more about castor and other stops on c-span's cities to her at c-span.org/localcontent. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the we showhere on c-span3 you the most relevant hearings and public affairs events. on weekends, we are home to american history tv with programs that tell our country story, including the civil wars 100 50th anniversary, visiting battlefields and key events, touring museums and historic sites. discover what artifacts reveal about america's past.

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goldwater. [applause] >> the needs that we seek to fill, the hopes that we seek to not our needs or our hopes along. hopesre the needs and the of most of the people. careamericans want medical for older citizens, and so do i. most americans want fair and stable prices and decent income and so do i.

most americans want a decent home and -- in a decent neighborhood for all, and so do i. most americans want an education for every child to the limit of his abilities, and so do i. [applause] most americans want a job for every man who wants to work, and so do i. [applause] most americans want victory in ouwa