THE REPLY OF "THE BULL."
June 3, 1933
Honorable Frank J. Goebel,
Asst. Gen. Solicitor
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company
Cincinnati, Ohio
Dear Sir: I am told I am a Hereford bull. . .I was supreme on the Durham farm, and lord of all I surveyed—that is, until recently. . .
For years I had noticed some sort of animal or monster wend its way shrieking and rumbling across our land, always going along the same trail without variation. In daytime its head emitted black smoke and a terrific noise with its rattling body trailing back, slender and long like a snake. At night it had an enormously bright eye in the center of its mammoth head, and belched forth fire sometimes. . . We got used to it, and finding it to be totally unsociable, we adopted the wise policy of ignoring it—that is, until recently. . .
I was grazing along what my owner says Ring Lardner would laughingly call a fence, and just stepped through, or on, or over, it to where the grass looked greener. And then I went on and up to where there was less grass and more gravel, and some ties and rails. . . Then something happened, and I went winding down and down. Oh, the pain!
My owner . . . has said more nice things about me and my good qualities and worth since I got hurt than he ever said in all the years gone before. . . He said to some men who came out to see me after I was damn near killed: "Did you ever in your life see so good an individual bull, any where, any time? Look at that head. Imagine what it looked like before he got hit. . . I wouldn't have taken a thousand dollars for him before he was hurt. No. I wouldn't have taken two thousand dollars, nor there isn't a man among you who would have taken five thousand for him if he had been yours". . . Then my owner said: "It's confidential, of course, and I know you men well enough to know you'll keep it to yourselves. Ex-Governor Warren McCray had a man down here secretly to buy him at $10,000—to head his herd."
"Now," my owner says, "what would you appraise him at? I want to be fair with the railroad. . . You and I are farmers, and everybody knows a farmer has a hard time, and all farmers should stand together, but at the same time be fair, of course, to the railroads. Naturally we all know that railroads are not fair, and are big rich corporations, paying great high salaries to presidents and lawyers, especially lawyers, for sitting around in swivel chairs, milking the public, fixing mythical valuations to base freight rates on, and then eternally asking for rate increases when they are so high now nobody can ship anything over them . . . . .
"Still, I want you men to be absolutely fair with the railroad . . . . ."
I don't know what happened after that because they moved off toward the house. . . They say the chances are that I will live, but I wish I were dead. . . Pain, pain, ever since. My head is swollen to double, my sight in one eye may be gone. I still bleed at the nose. . .My mental anguish is unbearable. I know that which I had in abundance and have ample living proof of is gone from me, never to return. I have lost my social standing in the community in which I reside and my wimmen folks are laughing at me and at this time of the year. . . Oh, grave, where is thy sting. . .
If you care to apologize for your hasty remarks about bull mental
pain and anguish, you may address me as:
Respectfully,
The Bull