Legislative Blunders

"They CHANGED it ! . . . changed it all around

   . . . smeared it all over with blood"

Arthur Miller, Playwriter; repeated line of dialogue, spoken by Clark Gable, in the MGM motion picture, The Misfits, about wild horses and "Mustangers".

By the year 1950, it was a well accepted practice by many cattle ranchers and so called "mustangers" in the American west to inflict all sorts of sadistic cruelties on wild horses, including chasing them with small airplanes until they dropped, possibly chasing them off of cliffs, sewing their nostrils shut with wire or rawhide, attaching them to huge tires, shooting them on sight and various combinations of "all of the above".  That was until "Wild Horse Annie" came across the stream of blood that was being smeared all over the western landscape and made it her business to do something about it.

There are many accounts on other web sites of he story of Velma Johnston, whom some called "Wild Horse Annie".  But, for those who haven't heard the story, here it is again - very briefly.  Basically, the story told of a rancher's horse loving daughter, Velma, who was driving on a road where she noticed blood coming out of the back of a trailer that was transporting wild horses who had been captured by "mustangers".  This led to her more horrible visual discoveries of the torn apart horses who were inside the trailer, prompting her to begin a highly emotional national campaign to outlaw such animal abuses.  Velma's detractors, whose special interests were only in making money off of the wild horses, began calling her "Wild Horse Annie".  But, this name apparently became a kind of badge of honor that she wore proudly for the rest of her lifetime.  And, she managed to create a public outcry that was punctuated most noticably by letters from school children and which , by the late 1960s and early 1970s, had mushroomed to such an extraordinary degree that it eventually resulted in what was supposed to be protective legislation, culminating in congressional passage of the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act.

Since this reporter was not present and, therefore, unable to listen to and peer over the shoulders of all those who were involved in listened to Velma's story and creating the actual wording of the resulting legislation, the following portion of the "Wild Horse Annie" story is filled with all sorts of personal conjecture about the whys and wherefores of its legal loophole and other shortcomings.In actuality, the l971 law is packed full of various ways that the intended specific requirements for wild horse protection and preservation can be avoided by government bureaucrats, whenever they so chose.  This, of course, leads to all kinds of political payoffs for special treatment of special interests, which is exactly what has been and continues to be going on for the more than three past decades, since the Act became public law.  It would appear that, after all their years of  struggle and hard work to make things better for these government abused animals, "Wild Horse Annie" and her supporters simply were hoodwinked, sweet-talked and fast-talked by a bunch of political bums who probably didn't like the idea of the public telling them what to do and silenced the crowd with misleading assurances about what actually has turned out to be a pretty worthless piece of legislation.

Probably the worst thing about this legislation is that it empowers the Bureau of Land Management, widely reported to be one of the government's most politically corrupt operational agencies, with the life and death management power over wild horses and burros.  (...as if these unfortunate and beleaguered animals didn't have enought problems in the first place !!)

The two links, directly below, pertain to two variations of complete text copies of the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act (Public Law 92-195), as it existed prior to the Burns amendment that was passed in 2004.  At the risk of being redundant, the editorial position on this web site is that removal of the Burns amendment, so as to restore this law's original limitations on numbers of wild horses that may be sold to a single buyer, still would result only in a return to original legislation that was grossly inadequate and not properly enforced in the first place, not to mention its being undermined in subsequent years, by legislative changes that preceded the Burns amendment.  It has all the earmarks of trying to appease too many corrupted members of Congress who once again, as in 1971, apparently are catering to special interest bribery, directly or indirectly, and working to produce deliberately flawed legislation that deceives and circumvents the actual will of the American public.  We believe the basis for this editorial position becomes clear, when reading our 'text with commentary' copy of the legislation.