Tax Resistance in the Cedar County Cow War

Tax resistance was threatened in the Cedar County Cow War of . From the Urbana Daily Courier (excerpts):

Tax Strike Threatens in T.B. Test Row

by Gene Gillette
(United Press Staff Correspondent)

While state veterinarians continued testing cows owned by now undemonstrative Cedar county farmers, support of resistance against the bovine tuberculosis test law came today from another county in [the] form of a threatened tax strike.

Seven hundred members of the Farmers Protective association met at Mount Pleasant, in Henry county, last night, and passed a resolution to be transmitted to Gov. Dan W. Turner today declaring that unless the governor orders immediate withdrawal of troops from Cedar county the farmers will pay neither unpaid taxes of this year nor next year’s taxes.

The farmers also asked the release of J[ake].W. Lenker, who was placed under military arrest when veterinarians found that his quarantined cattle had been removed from his farm. Lenker is president of the Farmers Protective association, which as an organization has opposed persistently the state test law.

Lenker was taken to the state reformatory at Anamosa last night to prevent possible violence.

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