"Given the American image of the allegedly individualistic Texas cowboy, the 1883 strike by the mounted wage hands may be considered bizarre. But western resentment toward eastern capital was directed in part against vast ranches owned by absentee landlords in the northeast and in Britain ... Some 200 strikers rode out of the bunkhouses of every major ranch in the Panhandle around March 23, just before the spring roundup ... A troop of Texas Rangers was called to aid in dispersing the striking cowboys, but probably never had to go into action. There was an almost constant flow of farm boys, accustomed to even lower wages in central and southern Texas, streaming through the Panhandle looking for work, and they broke the strike in four or five weeks."
Courtesy Texas State AFL-CIO, Austin, Texas. Text from Dr. George N. Green, Age of Excess, unpublished manuscript.