Customer Reviews

The Cattle King: A Dramatized Biography

5 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(0)
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The life of Henry Miller really derves the talents of someone like Robert Caro, since it can be seen as the basis for a broader history of the American West in the 19th century. Miller himself was self-made, a dynamic, visionary, and fantastically successful land and cattle baron. He also seems to have been welll-liked by the men he hired, and (at least for a land baron) by his neighbors. The story as told by Treadwell is factual enough, but devoid of personal and cultural detail. Miller's business papers are mostly in the collection of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, raw data awaiting the talentrs of a more skilled biographer. An out-of-print but fairly easy to find book written by one of Miller's foremen, "California Gringos", is also informative

I found this to be a fasinating book about the success of Henery Miller in the American West.

Having taught many aspects of Western history including the cattle industry, I found Edward Treadwell's The Cattle King: A Biographical Account of Henry Miller of the Miller & Lux Cattle Empire a fascinating read. To me it wasn't just an informative look at one of the major founders of California's cattle trade, but because so much of Miller's success was tied to water, it provided a dual interest for those interested in water rights history as well. Needless to say my involvement with the Colorado Water Conservation Board on a cursory level as a temporary worker and consultant piqued my interest in both the riparian and appropriation sides of water rights history outlined in the book. Because Treadwell himself was a water rights lawyer, particularly for California riparian interests, there was a wealth of H2O legal history that would probably not interest the average reader.

So, looking beyond my own interests and rating this on a more objective level, I only gave it four branding irons rather than 4.5 (which was my first inclination).

Originally published in 1931 and reprinted in 1950, this work would not fare well among modern American readers. It lauds legal immigration, is a handbook for the benefits of free market enterprise, admonishes the lazy propensity to let land grow wild and rather upholds the enterprising spirit of being the best humanly-possible stewards of land one happens to acquire through Provident blessing and entrepreneurship.

In fact, one might be shocked to see how Henry Miller used the advantages water law and of the Swamp Land Act of 1850 to carve a cattle empire out of otherwise useless (until oil was discovered) land. Miller brilliantly makes improvements to safely, efficiently, and beneficially use every possible advantage to feed the citizens of the ever expanding city of San Francisco and its environs.

Miller also exhibits the habits of responsible capitalism, taking care to remember the poor, help out his employees, and give back to the community in which he lived and worked. Miller would be the perfect poster boy for economists like Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and social commentators like Walter Williams.

In fact, many would see Miller's life as the way immigration should be accomplished, a model for responsible stewardship of the environment, and a champion of how free enterprise should operate in America today.