ZACK MULHALL'S VIEWS
The Stories of Cattlemen Desiring the Strip All Buncombe
The Stockmen More Anxious Than Any Other Citizen to Open the Outlet-
Plenty of Grazing Ground in the Strip on Land Not Tillable-
He Says the Government Couldn't Force Cowmen to Take the Strip
Submitted by: Mollie Stehno

May 6, 1893-Guthrie Daily News

A dispatch from Washington in an evening newspaper holding the cattlemen in the Indian territory responsible for the delays in opening the Cherokee strip for settlement causes some indignation, but more amusement among cattlemen who are posted. From first to last the story is one of stupid blunders. Its object was to create the impression that the cattle interests had bought off the national administration by showing that leases had but recently been procured in the Ponca reservation. Since the Ponca reservation is separate and distinct from the strip land and will not be opened up for white settlement, the cattlemen are inclined to make merry with the correspondent who wrote the story and the paper, which published it.

Mr. Zack Mulhall, of Mulhall, one of the big cattlemen in the Indian Territory, is inclined to be of the opinion that the correspondent did not know where the Cherokee Strip was situated. "The Ponca reservation," said Mr. Mulhall, "is owned by the Ponca Indians and leased by them to two stockmen, and the lease was ratified by the republican administration. This was all before Mr. Cleveland took his seat, and it was all proper and right, as to land belonging to the Poncas, and no negotiations had been entered into. A great many people who pass through the strip mistake the Ponca reservation for part of the strip, but it has no connection with it. The reservation is only twelve miles square, and there are enough Indians to take it all by allotment excepting one-half township.

"The stockmen are more anxious than any other class of citizens to have the strip opened, as there will be any amount of grazing land on such parts of the strip as are not tillable. The same is true in the Cheyenne and Arapahoe country, where there are two counties that are not settled and the land cannot be given away. There have been 52,000 head of cattle unloaded at Ponca, 15,000 of which are to be grazed on that reservation and the rest to go to the Osage reservation. There will be many more cattle for the Osage reservation unloaded at Ponca, but there has not been a steer unloaded on any reservation now grazing in the strip lands.

"The government, the people and the Cherokee Indians combined could not force the cow men to take the strip. They have not the cattle to put on it and will not have this year nor next.

"President Cleveland has never shown any friendship for cattlemen. Seven years ago he gave us forty days to vacate the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservation. We sent a delegation to remonstrate with him and they were told that if they had delayed the movements of their cattle during the time they spent in coming to see him they were just that much out."

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