It stands to reason that a state that features a cowboy riding a bronco on its license plate would be partial to “the cowboy way.”
And the Wyoming legislature is trying to make it official with a code derived from the 2004 book Cowboy Ethics, by James P. Owen.
The proposed code is short and simple (the full text is available here as a PDF download; look for SF0051), with provisions like “Take pride in your work,” “Ride for the brand,” and “Talk less, say more.”
If adopted, the Wyoming Cowboy Code will be symbolic with no legal force or effect, but it makes me wonder how the cowboy came to symbolize all that is right and virtuous.
In the 19th century, a “cow-boy” was pretty much a rowdy ruffian. For instance, Wyatt Earp referred to Tombstone’s “tough element” as “the cow-boys and stage robbers.” And weren’t cowboys involved in Wyoming’s infamous Johnson County War in 1892, when the large stock growers raised a private army to go after the small ranchers?
We can likely blame Hollywood and the old dime novels for the transformation of the cowboy from the hard-riding and hard-drinking footloose fellow into a modern Sir Galahad, the epitome of responsibility and rectitude.
But that doesn’t square with reality. I’ve lived in cow country all my life. I’ve gone on roundups and ridden drag on three-day cattle drives. I’ve known quite a few cowboys.
And they seem pretty much like any other occupational group, be they miners, lumberjacks, mechanics or journalists. Some are trustworthy, some aren’t. Some work hard, others shirk. Some drink too much and get dangerously violent, others are temperate and sensible. Some are braggarts and show-offs, others are quiet and modest.
This could go on indefinitely, but by now it should be clear that there are real cowboys, as diverse in their ways as any other group, and then there are those imaginary cowboys that appear in the Code of the West.
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