Sept/Oct 2025 (Volume 17, Issue 5)

 

By Jerome Thompson

 

First Lieutenant Oscar Gaumer reported the weather on Sept. 22, 1931, was warm and cloudy. By 7:30 p.m. that day more than 1,600 Iowa National Guardsmen had set up camp at the Cedar County Fairgrounds in Tipton. This was not a training exercise. Their mission was to support state veterinarians and local law officers to enforce the law requiring mandatory testing of cattle for bovine tuberculosis. This action became known in the press and by the Iowa National Guard as the Cow War.

 

On Sept. 21 about 400 farmers defied a posse of 65 deputies and drove them and veterinarians from the farm of J.W. “Jake” Lenker near Wilton Junction. The officials were attacked with rocks, clubs and rotten eggs. They slashed tires and filled car radiators with mud. Upon hearing this news, Gov. Dan Turner called Gen. Park Findley and ordered the National Guard to duty.

 

Guard units of the 168th Infantry, 133rd Infantry and the 113th Cavalry were mobilized from across the state. They arrived in Tipton on chartered trains. Troops from Camp Dodge near Des Moines drove GMC and Liberty trucks to transport the guardsmen around Cedar County. Guard units came from Council Bluffs, Shenandoah, Villisca, Red Oak, Centerville, Corning, Marshalltown, Mason City, Waterloo, Fort Dodge, Webster City, Dubuque, Iowa City, Sigourney and Davenport. This was the first of four times in the 1930s that the National Guard was called upon to deal with civil unrest.

 

For years bovine tuberculosis was known to transmit to humans who drank milk or ate meat from infected cattle. In 1919 the state joined hands with the federal government to begin a testing program. It was headed by Dr. Peter Malcolm, the chief state veterinarian. At first, testing was a voluntary program. Iowa passed a law in 1923 requiring tuberculosis testing of all cattle. Cattle owners were incentivized to have their cattle tested so the herds could be certified as safe. If a cow tested positive the cow was slaughtered and the farmer was paid for the loss, but far less than the market value. The federal government restricted the transport of cattle across state lines in 1924 that had not complied with the testing procedure. In 1928 the federal government attributed one-tenth of the nation’s deaths to the disease. In 1929 Iowa passed a law making testing mandatory.

 

This was viewed as another hardship by many farmers. While the rest of the nation prospered after World War 1, rural Iowa sank into an agricultural depression. By 1931 one out of every seven Iowa farmers lost their farm and almost 60 percent of Iowa farms were mortgaged. Farmland that brought $139 per acre in 1929 brought only $65 per acre in 1933. The crash of 1929 added to the gloom as banks foreclosed on farms that couldn’t pay back debts.

 

From 1927 to 1930 there were numerous lawsuits and attempts to rewrite legislation regarding testing. In 1930 the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the 1929 compulsory testing law. On March 8, 1931, Turner wrote a letter informing objectors that the law would be enforced.

 

Cedar County farmers began to push back. On March 9, 1931, state veterinarians were opposed by 600 farmers who refused to allow testing on the William Butterbrodt farm in Clarence. Protestors were placed on five farms and organized a telephone notification system to bring protestors to farms where testing is likely. About 100 farmers held a meeting on March 14 protesting testing and the arrest of E.C. Mitchell who objected to testing of his cattle. A chartered train brought more than 1,200 farmers to attend a special hearing before the legislature on a bill to repeal the testing law.

 

Organization was key to the protests. To that end, the Farmer’s Protective Association was formed. At the heart of the association were the families of G.G. Walton, Anton Schroeder, William Butterbrodt, Paul Moore, and E.C. Mitchell. They elected Lenker to be the association president. It was later to be the violence at the Lenker farm that would trigger the deployment of the National Guard.

 

TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY AND OTHER FASCINATING STORIES ABOUT IOWA HISTORY, subscribe to Iowa History Journal.