William, Trace and Jonathan aka LaJeunesse, Gallagher and Serrie: Three Musketeers for the 21st Century
 
 
 
March 13, 2005
 
 
By Julie Kay Smithson
 
 
 
In 2000, Fox News http://www.FoxNews.com did a "60 Minutes" type of one-hour special -- two of them, in fact -- titled, "Vanishing Freedom: Who Owns America?" in which William LaJeunesse, Trace Gallagher and Jonathan Serrie showcased four property rights fights.
 
One of those fights was in the Darby part of Ohio where I live -- beautiful midwestern Amish and Mennonite farms with neat-as-a-pin yards, miles of glossy-leafed corn and soybeans, undulating oat and wheat heads in rhythm with the breeze, sleek dairy and beef cattle and clotheslines full of pastel homespun. For two hundred years -- since Thomas Jefferson signed deeds on sheepskin -- farming and honest, hardworking stewardship have been the hallmarks of "the Darby." The intent by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to purge almost a quarter of a million acres of its stewards and their custom and culture, using the poor excuse that we had 'possible habitat' for the allegedly 'endangered' Indiana bat, would have been ludicrous -- had it not been so real.
 
This special was a huge help to us in our fight, and it portrayed us honestly. When looking at the pieces of the puzzle that, when assembled, did not include a federal presence here, the "Vanishing Freedom: Who Owns America?" Fox News special report was one of the corner border pieces.
 
This great trio of reporters and their crew spent FIVE DAYS here, interviewing Amish farmers and homeowners and being sure that the fifteen minutes allotted to the Darby was told right, and it was.
 
Here, in the beginning, not a single news source within 500 miles of us would tell our story and tell it honestly. The first newspaper to feature our story -- and also the first newspaper to feature Hage v. U.S. -- was David Morgan's Asheville Tribune http://www.ashevilletribune.com in Asheville, North Carolina.
 
To this day, the ONLY television channel to portray property rights accurately has been Fox News (cable). William LaJeunesse (based out of Fox News in Los Angeles) reported on the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and our need to drill for oil there. This coming week (Wednesday and Thursday afternoon) he'll be reporting on illegal invaders. It's not the first time he's reported on either -- nor will it be the last. He was in the Klamath Basin http://www.KlamathBasinCrisis.org when I was there in August 2001, reporting accurately about the plight of the farmers/irrigators http://www.KlamathBucketBrigade.org there. He was in Eureka, Montana, in May 2001, for the Eureka Log Haul http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/eureka_log_haul.htm when I was one of thousands that hauled logs to Jim Hurst's Owens & Hurst sawmill just 4 miles from the Canadian border. He reported that story honestly -- the so-called 'environmentalists' were livid.
 
The following quote is of utmost importance in understanding why the major muzzled media (be it radio, television, newspapers, etc.) does not report the truth:
 
In March 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press....They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. "An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers." - U.S. Congressman Oscar Callaway, 1917
 
This is the truth and it is ugly, but those with unlimited power and wealth believe that everyone has a price at which they may be bought -- and in many cases that is true.
 
There exists today -- just as there has existed as all pivotal times in history -- a small number of people who choose to follow the bright light of Truth and shun the darkness that offers a price for their freedom. Those who cherish freedom AND will make the effort and go the extra mile to earn that freedom, will always be in the minority, but that's all right, too.
 
William, Trace and Jonathan, 21st century Three Musketeers? Darned betcha they are. We are in good company!