THE LIGHTER SIDE
495
THE LIGHTER SIDE THE COST OF A PRINCIPLE BY EDGAR WHITE
AT the December call of the Kansas City Court of Appeals docket, the biggest case over a small matter ever tried in Missouri passed into history. The style of the action was John Massengale v. Elijah E. Rice. The Appellate Court's uncontested order of affirmance crowned Elijah with the victor's laurel wreath. The subject of litigation was a spindleshanked steer, "a very ordinary animal, a scrub," the plaintiff said, "worth about 830." The life of the steer fight and the great Civil War were about the same — five years. If there is a Missourian who has not heard of the Celebrated Steer Case it is because his parents were shamefully derelict in their edu cational obligations to him. It has become. a part of the state's fame, just as in less peaceful days Charles Quantrill, Bill Anderson, and the James boys enriched the commonwealth's history with a certain distinction. In September, 1899, John Massengale, of Macón County (known as "Missouri John" when herding cattle back in Wyoming), missed from his ranch a small red steer. It didn't bother him much, because he had a thousand of much better quality left, and he never lost any time in hunting up the prodigal. But one evil day a horseman came along the road and called "Missouri John" out. He told him he had seen his missing animal down on Rice's farm, which was just across the line in Chariton County. John went over to see Farmer Rice. Together they visited the herd, and Massengale promptly spied the scrub. "That's mine, Elijah," he said. "No, John," replied Elijah, "we raised that steer ourselves." Massengale telephoned to his lawyer at Macón and a suit in replevin was filed. Before the justice the plaintiff described his animal as "a dark red steer, a round body, rather a small dark two-year-old, a little under average size with a white spot in his forehead, and an underbit in the right ear." Elijah gave the description of his steer as follows: "Well, the steer is what I would call a red steer. He has just a white spot on his forehead, with an underbit in the right ear."
The similitude of belief furnished beautiful grounds for warfare. Both men had money burning in their pockets. The border was soon aroused by adherents of the two prominent litigants. " Missouri John " had begun his career by rounding up cattle in the West and he knew he could not be mistaken. Elijah had grown up in the valleys where a man's social success was rated according to his knowledge of steercraft, and he felt that he knew the subject of con troversy as well as he did any member of his family. In passing, it may be remarked that it is fairly safe to criticise a cattleman's com mand of the King's English, or his manners at the dinner table, but when you challenge his capacity to identify anything that wears horns you can look for trouble with entire confidence. There were seven trials. Hung juries, ap peals, and changes of venue strung the litigation out half a decade. It traveled along a highway paved with shining dollars, until at the climax it was figured the unsuccessful litigant stood to lose 85,000. The case would have ended in 1900, but at the very end of the trial, during a strong appeal to the jury, Elijah's leading lawyer, J. A. Col lect, used this language, taken from the printed record : "Massengale obtained his start by rounding up unbranded cattle in the West; and branding them as his own. In the West they call that 'branding mavericks,' but here in Missouri we call it plain-out cattle stealing." That short tirade cost Elijah $300, for the plaintiff appealed on the ground that there was no evidence in the record to justify the attack, and after the Appellate Court had read through the 275 printed pages it so held, and Elijah: had to pay for the brief. During the life of the steer case it had been tried at Bynumville, Salisbury, Kansas City, and Fayette. When the trial was "on" in a town, the tavern-keepers would send out for extra help in the cook room and buy out the grocers. Each side levied on its respective township for witnesses, and when the two clans would meet in a town there wasn't much room for anybody else. The case was fought out with varying honors until a fatal day in last April, when a jury came
