Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1889 — Why Oklahoma Is Coveted. [ARTICLE]

Why Oklahoma Is Coveted.

California Examiner. “I was down in that Oklahoma country three years ago,” iaid an officer of Gen. Miles’s staff at the Case Royal yes terday, speaking of tlie likelihood of a fight between the troops and the Oxlahoma boomers. “Gen. Sheridan and Gen. Miles went to Fort Reno to quiet a disturbance among the Cheyenne Indians,and Iwas in the party. It is certainly a beautiful region for the agriculturalist,and it is no wonder the lands are coveted. The soil is rich and well watered ,the country is a rolling prairie, the climate is mild and equable, the grass in Summer is belly deep, and two railroads are now built through the heart of the vast, unoccupied domain. Anything can be grown there that will grow in Missouri or Arkansas. It would be the finest fruit country in the world. At Fort Reno peaches, pears and plams are raised which cannot be equalled anywhere outside of California. The most magnificent corn I ever saw is raised in Oklahoma by the few half-breeds allowed to till the soil. There are splendid streams, the Canadian River and its north fork, which course through the land. There is very little ■Hfrost and never a sign of a blizzard. It dose seem a pity that such a superb agricultural region should he shut out from settlement and given over in perpetuity to a worthless lot of Indians, who cannot uUe it as a hunting ground.” P. TT Barnnm’s Temperance Hectare. “I drank,” says P. T. Barnum, “more orless intoxicating liquors from 1837 till 1847. The last four of these years I was in England, and there the-habit and my appetite for liquor grew so .strong from month to month that I discovered that if continued it would certainly work my ruin. Wi,th a tremendous effort and a most determined resolution I broke the habit square off, and resolved never to practice it again. I have religiously kept that resolution for more than forty years. Had I not done so I should have been in my grave a quarter of a century ago, for my health had already begnn to be affected by alcohol. I was so delighted with my own escape that I traveled thousands of miles at mv own expense, and gave hundreds of free temperance lectures in every State between Maine and Wisconsin, besides Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana and California. I have gladly expended thousands of dollars for temperance. I have bnilt numerous houses for moderate drinking workingmen on condition that they wonld become teetotalers, and they subsequently paid for the houses with the money and extra strength gained thereby.”