Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 May 1889 — DISGUSTED AND ENRAGED. [ARTICLE]

DISGUSTED AND ENRAGED.

The Overflow from the Oklahoma "Botna. ■ S aaw or <n® Dispatches of Thursday say: The occupation of the Cherokee strip h—begun along the whole line. A much harder nut to crack than was any of the Oklahoma booms is now presented to the government The CnerOkee strip, which is now in process of being gobbled up, compriseswarly' eight million acres, and it far transcends Oklahoma in beauty and fertility. The excitement in Arkansas City, over the prospective lull seizure of the strip, is intense. The crowds o£ fugitives from the famine and thirst, frost and heat of Guthrie, are swelling as each train oil the all but paralyzed road comes in. The fiercest imprecations are breathed against the government for the outrageously unfair manner in which the country was thrown open. The whole federal machinery, from the President down to the last deputy, is passionately denounced. ~ The Oklahoma excitement is now confined almost wholly to the town site centers. As for the fanners, they have taken possession of their claims and have gone to work. The vast expanse of green sward is now broken in all directions by the ploughmen. Parties who have ridden all over the territory since last Monday, taking in the heart of the country embraced between the four points 81 Guthrie, Kingfisher, Oklahoma City and Ft. Reno, and also the country east of the Atchison road to the lowa reservation and Sac and Fox line and the Canadian river bottoms, report that there is not a single quarter section of any value whatever, that is not now hemesteaded. A great many claims of no value whatever have also been taken. Not one-half of the claims have yet been filed at either of the land offices established nt Guthrie and Lisbon. Homesteaders have preferred to make acttest of the validity of their claims. A number of claims have been deserted in various parts of the territory and wagons can be seen frequently on the back trail. Many of the di'-gruntled threaten to “squat” on the Indian lands surrrounding Oklahoma. Some will fall back on the Cherokee strip, others will go down into the Chickasaw country. That country is being rapidly settled an by farmers who pay *an annual head or lease for the privilege of tilling tbe soil \there. The country is as much superior to Oklahoma as is the Cherokee outiet,-and their is a great deal of conF~ plaint among tbe boomers that the poorest land in tbe Indian Territory should have been the only land open to settlement. A special from Kansas City. Mo., says: “Ihe bulletins in front of the telegraph office at the union depot Thursday morning indicated that all tbe early morning trains from Oklahoma were over tw o hours late. The cause of the delay was apparent when a train of fourteen coaches, crowded with returning boomers, came in. A more disgusted crowd could not be imagined. They were mostly originally from lowa, Nebraska and Illinois. —-Oklahoma soil is thin and poor, they say, and reveala the fact that thereiAalack of essential agricultural qualities. It is now regarded as certain that no crop can be raised this year. The Guthrie Base Ball Club has been organized. The Mayor-elect will play first base and captain tbe team. They have challenged all ether dubs to play for the championship of Oklahoma Territory. There is a scandal at Springfield, HL, .over the assertion that the men who left there for the new territory were all commissioned Deputy Marshals and got choice locations by getting into the c ountry at an early date, borne mem hers of the colony were officers of the Illinois militia and took State tents with them, A report eomes from Oklahoma to the effect that a gang of cowboys undertook to run a colony of old soldiers off their claims, and that a pitched battle occurred, in which six of the settlers were killed and several wounded. The eld soldiers were evidently bad marksmen, as none of the cowboys are reported dead or injured. A water wonts company has already been organized at Guthrie, with Col. Birge, of Chicago, at the head. He says be will have pure water by an improved filtering process. The people are wild with enthusiasm over the report of the appointment of John H. Baker, of Indiana, for the vacancy on the commission to open the Cherokee Stnp. They claim it means a quick opening and the relief of thousands from distress.